Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will follow up on the issue raised at the end of the Deputy's contribution. It is very important that I do not raise expectations that we can solve this issue easily. I have been in this House for nearly 20 years, as have many others. I and others have been to Washington many times trying to deal with the issue of the undocumented Irish. There have been false dawns over and over again. We have been quietly working to try to find a way forward that could create a reciprocal arrangement whereby we would facilitate US citizens who may want to retire or come to Ireland and on the other side, we would get access to visas for Irish people in the US and Irish people who may want to go to the US. That is something the Taoiseach discussed directly with President Trump. It is something I discussed with Rex Tillerson, although he has now moved on. A process and a discussion are under way. A legislative vehicle is needed to do that, which means getting support on Capitol Hill for that and having a sponsor and appropriate legislation and so on. There are many components to a potential solution and there are potential blockages with each one of them even though I think there is goodwill towards what we are trying to do on the part of many key players, including the President. We will continue to work on that in a way I hope does not raise too much expectation but tries to get an outcome. Deputy Deasy has done a really good piece of work in this area with quiet, firm diplomacy, if one wants to call it that, over many months to try to find a way forward that may work. Time will tell in the coming weeks whether we can get something significant across the line.

See this speech in context