Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak and I recognise the facility the Acting Chairman has offered me. I strongly support the report of the committee on the basis that we in this country, more than any other country on the face of the earth, must know more about emigration than anyone else - both forced emigration and unforced emigration, including economic emigration.

There are two categories we should consider. I know the committee has done this already and I support its work. The first are the people who have been on stamp 4 for ten or 12 and up to 20 years in some cases, on whose behalf, unfortunately, I have had to write and raise parliamentary questions ad infinitum. The time has come to release them from stamp 4 status and give them the required citizenship. At least on stamp 4 they can work, have done so and are willing to do so. Unfortunately, and very sadly, they were precluded and excluded from third level education. It was the most ridiculous decision at the time that I have ever known to ensure they could never go beyond second level. Unfortunately, in the cases of both those on stamp 4 and undocumented children, there have been situations in which parents, to improve their children's circumstances, have borrowed money from undesirable sources to fund various third level qualifications and have paid a high price for it.

I mention very briefly the undocumented, who are a very sad group of people, some of whom, again, have worked in this country for up to 20 years, albeit unofficial or without permission. Nonetheless, they worked and paid their taxes and continue to do so, and they are not always all that well-received when they make applications for regularisation, as I well know. In numerous cases they have been sent around in circles to comply with what appears to be an unending maze of bureaucracy, and I do not say that lightly as I have had, unfortunately, only too much experience of it. I have seen very sad situations of undocumented children who, with their parents, seem open to abuse and have been vulnerable and open to exploitation of various forms. It is very sad in any country, in any part of the globe, that such situations have not been addressed at this stage.

They need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

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