Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have met people who are undocumented in the United States. They are working and, in some cases, running businesses. They also have families. They have been there for a very long period and cannot come home for funerals or family events. It is a very difficult issue and across the political spectrum in the United States there is agreement that it needs to be addressed. This time last year I was very hopeful there would be potential to make progress, but last autumn the budget in the United States unravelled and there was a difficult political environment. This made it politically difficult for progress to be made on the immigration issue. We have had a number of positive statements in recent months from President Obama and Speaker Boehner who spoke in May about the possibility of making some progress. We receive feedback and maintain contact all the time through our embassy with Members of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Administration to see where the window is and what can be done. I intend to contribute more to this issue and travel to Washington in the coming weeks to talk to people on Capitol Hill and do what we can at a political level to try to move things forward.

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