Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

My understanding is that J1 visas will operate on the same basis, namely, that no employment is required prior to departure to the United States. Furthermore, the Bill now moves on to the House of Representatives and the Government will continue to seek to influence the stakeholders there. The Tánaiste will visit Washington next week and he will meet with key players on Capitol Hill in regard to this and other matters, in particular areas of immigration reform, resolution of the problem of the undocumented where progress is clearly being made, the provision of further legal migration from this country via the E3 scheme and the accessibility of the J1 summer programme. All of those matters are on the agenda. The best work is done on a person-to-person basis, in particular in our bilateral relations with the United States. That will continue very strongly. The matter of J1 visas, as raised by the Deputy, was largely resolved on a one-to-one basis by the Taoiseach and the work that was done in the embassies as well.

We wish to resolve the situation for undocumented Irish emigrants and to ensure that through the resolution there is no negative effect on J1 summer visas, in particular for students travelling to the United States. We will continue to monitor the situation.

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