Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

We need to return to Deputy Bruton's proposal of a clean bank and a bad bank. It means the taxpayer would not foot the bill on this and I urge the Government to reassess the crazy proposal being tabled in this area.

In my remaining time I want to focus on jobs in the economy. Fine Gael outlined a blueprint to create 100,000 jobs in our New Era document. There is another way to stimulate our economy, and that is to facilitate people in the migrant community to get back into the workforce. Migrants can be part of the solution to our economic difficulties but the Government forces many of them to stay on the dole. While non-EU migrants make up only 1.5% of the workforce, once they go on the live register it is virtually impossible for them to get back into employment. If we abolished the work permit fee of €1,500 for migrant workers who are already resident here and on the live register it would save the economy €200 million per annum and allow those migrants to contribute to the turnaround and improvement of our economic circumstances.

Another issue is the business permission anomaly. If somebody from outside the EU has a good idea and wants to create a job for himself or herself, and jobs for Irish people, he or she must satisfy certain criteria for the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and have €300,000 in cash to be given permission to set up a business in this country. That is an unnecessary bureaucratic process that should be based on the business idea they put forward. In the last five years the Department has turned down 85% of those proposals, some of which are very worthwhile proposals that could benefit the economy and become the Microsofts or Dells of the future in this country. I do not see why we do not support and encourage people with a good business idea rather than put a barrier in place far in excess of the barriers for Irish citizens.

The third issue on immigrants is those who are caught in the black economy. Some 12 months ago the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform gave a commitment that he would introduce a bridging loan for migrants who came into this country legally but through no fault of their own fell out of the system because of the bureaucratic nightmare which is our immigration process. The black economy costs our economy €3.5 billion and if we could give migrants who have fallen into that situation the opportunity to return to the legal workforce and the tax system, it would benefit them individually and the economy. Yet we are not prepared to put that visa system in place. We can make the same argument about our citizens in the United States. We are talking about a small minority of people, yet the Minister is not prepared to introduce the legislation to facilitate that happening, which could benefit the economy.

Migrants can assist us in turning around this economy. We should not put the blame on them for these difficulties but give them the opportunity to participate and contribute to our recovery.

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