Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am sure that, like many people concerned with immigration in Europe, Ireland and the UK, the Taoiseach has been appalled by the story of what happened to members of the Windrush generation who were invited to live and work in the UK from countries like Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean after the Second World War and who have been effectively deprived of most their rights of residency in the UK in the past couple of years. The British Government has now promised to redress this for people from the Caribbean. However, Guy Verhofstadt, who is the European Parliament liaison person for Brexit, has expressed serious concerns on behalf of EU citizens who may be similarly affected by this type of development in UK immigration law, which is very complex and which I do not think anybody fully understands. In terms of the work being done by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of the Taoiseach, has the Windrush issue been examined and followed? Has a report on it been prepared? There will be people living in Northern Ireland who have lived in the Republic of Ireland but who originally came from other parts of the EU or the wider world. In the UK, people in their 60s and 70s have been refused cancer treatment by the NHS and other people have been threatened with deportation. Has the Taoiseach had this matter examined as part of the fallout from the changes the UK is making?

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