Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

I agree that we have to be cautious about our economy and monitor it, but we also need continued growth and additional employees. Our concern should be that we will not be sufficiently competitive. To be competitive, however, we need employees from other countries. Employees here would confirm that and I am sure they believe the Government is being overly cautious as regards this legislation. If our economy experiences a significant downturn, it will be because we lost an opportunity. It will not be the fault of the people from the new EU countries if our economy fails. We can deal with problems in our economy by ensuring that we increase our competitiveness, allow employees to come here to work for employers, invest in research, development and education, train our employees, study our labour market needs and put a proper green card system in place. That is the way we should approach this issue.