Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and substitute the following:

—welcomes the report of the Task Force on Policy regarding Emigrants;

—notes that the report contains many proposals affecting a number of Government Departments and that their implementation will have to be phased over a period of years;

—welcomes the progress made by the Government so far in implementing the recommendations and notes that action is currently being taken on over two-thirds of the proposals in the report;

—welcomes the additional funding provided in the Vote for Foreign Affairs this year and notes the Minister for Foreign Affairs intention to give priority to funding of welfare services for Irish emigrants who require special support, including elderly people and those who are vulnerable or at risk of exclusion;

—notes the intention of the Minister for Foreign Affairs to establish a designated unit in his Department after the EU Presidency to coordinate the provision of services to Irish emigrants; and

—requests the Minister to keep under review the proposals to establish an Agency for the Irish abroad.".

I was an emigrant. I was less than 18 years of age when I travelled to Dublin and out to Dún Laoghaire on a cold January evening. Two images still resonate through the decades and will probably stay with me until I die. One was the lights of Dún Laoghaire harbour as I left and the other was the approaching lights of Holyhead as I arrived. I arrived at Euston station the following morning after a seven hour train journey in a freezing carriage, where to keep warm I snuggled together with others, mainly from the west, who had made the journey seeking a new life. Arriving in Euston, we were met by representatives of the Legion of Mary.

It is important and timely, in the context of this debate, to pay a warm tribute to Irish organisations such as the Legion of Mary which, for decades, met the Irish coming off the boat-trains to ensure they were looked after in terms of accommodation and, if necessary, to arrange job applications for them, and also to ensure they did not meet with the wrong company. That covers what I mean. They did not wear their religion on their sleeve but were there for purely social purposes. Many of them have now passed to their eternal reward but it is important to pay them a warm tribute and acknowledge the outstanding contribution they made.

When I first got involved in politics I was elected to the national executive of Fianna Fáil and one of the first things I attempted to do was to raise the question of emigrants at a meeting in Mount Street. I remember being told by the then Minister for Finance, the late George Colley, that Governments did not wish to recognise they had any financial obligation to emigrants because they felt that giving money to emigrants or emigrant organisations outside Ireland would create a pull factor. That was not the term he used then but it has been used subsequently. Governments felt more Irish people would leave if they felt the Government would support them financially in the UK, which was weird thinking. I was relatively young, naive and inexperienced at the time and I was confronted by a very powerful Minister for Finance who was not so much attempting to put me in my box as reflecting the political ethos of the time.

I do not doubt the sincerity and passion of those who have worked on this since the task force reported and I am particularly struck by the passion Deputy Stagg brought to the recent debate on this matter. Some Members may have heard his contribution repeated on "Tonight With Vincent Browne" and I empathise with and recognise everything he said. The difference was that he was talking about it from an Irish perspective, watching the consequences of the population haemorrhage from the west and his native Mayo, but I lived that emigrant experience. Until one lives that emigrant experience——