Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The recent EU discussions focused primarily on Ukraine, as well as on other conflicts. That is to be expected and understood but, as my colleague said, there was no mention of the plight of the Palestinian people. It annoys many people in this country and around the globe that there are two conflicts, one of which gets attention while the other is completely ignored. Ireland has a responsibility to do something about that. We should make sure that happens.

The European Labour Authority looks at labour shortages and labour supply throughout the European Union. We are very aware of that in Ireland. I was looking it up and it mentions a range of occupations where there are shortages across the European Union. They are talking about healthcare, software, construction, engineering and crafts. We know about all of that in Ireland. We often discuss pensions in here. There are about 600,000 pensioners in Ireland and we say we need four workers for every pensioner, which is about 2.5 million workers and we have approximately that. In 25 years’ time we expect to have more than 1 million pensioners. To keep the same ratio, we will need 4 million workers. They will not come from Ireland and will certainly not come from Europe, yet the European Union has the mentality of blocking anyone coming from anywhere outside of Europe. There needs to be a rethink of that. We need to recognise we will need workers in our country and they will have to come from outside of the European Union. We need strategies to deal with that. People fleeing conflict and war is a political problem that needs to be addressed but people fleeing poverty also needs to be addressed and is a political issue. We need to recognise we have a responsibility, as humanitarians and as a European Union which is supposed to be about humanitarianism, to ensure we deliver for everyone in the globe and are part of the bigger picture. Ireland needs people to come here to provide employment and look after those million pensioners we will have in 25 years’ time.

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