Seanad debates

Thursday, 3 July 2003

Immigration Bill 2002 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil] : Report and Final Stages.

 

I want to emphasise one other point, which I have always made when I speak on these issues and I reiterate it here today, lest it be said that by not doing so I am contributing to a general climate of misunderstanding. The great majority of non-Irish people whom we encounter in our day-to-day lives, 80% or more, have nothing to do with the asylum process and are here as of right, as people invited to take part in the Irish economy. As anybody involved in trade and industry knows, they are playing a huge and valuable role in making this State prosperous. They have contributed hugely to that. Therefore, I deprecate the tendency to regard everyone who appears to be foreign or speaks with a foreign accent as part of an amorphous mass of refugees or asylum seekers. This is simply not the case. The notion that everyone who is, in effect, different is somehow a product of the asylum seeking process reflects a thought pattern which one frequently detects in public discourse and, unfortunately, sometimes even in media comment.

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