Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Government has committed itself to do what it can to help Irish emigrants abroad as evidenced by the appointment of a Minister of State with responsibility for the diaspora and a Senator representing the diaspora. In this regard, I compliment the Taoiseach on speaking up for the undocumented Irish in America in his excellent speech in Washington last month. However, when it comes down to the practicalities, we appear to be putting barrier after barrier in the way of our emigrants returning home and making a contribution to the rebuilding of Ireland.

About 300,000 people left this country over the past decade to find work when jobs were not available here. Many others were forced to extend stays abroad because of the downturn in our economy. Many of these people now want to come back home, but for many it is an economic impossibility. The cost of motor insurance is typical of the issues they face. Drivers who have been out of the country for just two years lose any no-claims entitlements they had before they left, possibly adding thousands to already prohibitive insurance costs.

There is also a particular barrier regarding access to universities and third-level colleges. If people have lived outside the EU for two of the previous five years their children are treated as international students and must pay exorbitant fees to go to college. Those fees could come to €100,000 for an undergraduate course.

I was recently contacted by a group of Irish families living and working in California for the past three to 12 years. Most of them work with Medtronic, the medical device manufacturer, whose plant in Galway is one of the largest employers in Ireland with close to 3,000 workers directly employed there. These are mainly highly educated and skilled people, Irish to the core, who feel they have much to contribute to this country if they were to return. With many of them now having children approaching college age they are anxious that they should get an Irish third level education, but the costs allied to the reduction to their salaries should they return to Ireland, make this prohibitive. If they go to college in the United States it is likely that they will stay there for their lives, their talents lost to Ireland along with those of their parents.

Others in the United States are becoming more fearful for their future there because they are undocumented. For them and many other Irish families in Australia, Canada and around the globe, the question of returning home is a heartbreaking quandary because they know if they do, their children will not be able to advance to a college education which is considered a basic necessity for accessing so many careers today.

When will the Government remove the barrier to people returning home and relax the strict residency rules that are preventing Irish children from accessing affordable Irish education that should be their right? They are essentially being treated as foreigners in their own land.

One of the greatest difficulties for the undocumented Irish in the United States is the renewal of their Irish driver's licence. For many, it is the only thing preventing deportation from the United States. In all the sanctuary cities, the production of that licence saves people from arrest.

An Irish passport can be renewed online and at the post office, but a driver's licence cannot be renewed unless the applicant presents himself or herself in person at a National Driver Licence Service centre in this country. This is an impossibility for those living in the US and other parts of the world. When will the same online renewal facilities be extended to cover driver licences?

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