Seanad debates
Thursday, 10 October 2002
Address by President of the European Parliament.
That argument would have us believe that they are all coming here because there are no jobs at home. At the same time there is a different argument used by the "No" campaign, that labour is cheaper in the applicant countries so all new jobs will be located there. They will not be coming here because all our jobs will be going there. The cheap labour argument does not stand up. It is an illiterate view of the contemporary Irish economy. People who think all those jobs were brought here because we are a cheap labour force are wrong. Also, those who think labour is cheap in Poland should go to China or elsewhere in Asia. If cheap labour is the issue we are not even in the game. We have moved up the ladder into a skills-productivity-education mix that puts us in a place that is not fighting in the cheap labour pond. If we were, we would not be where we are today in terms of what we have achieved or in terms of the ability to encourage, promote and retain jobs.
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