Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

I welcome this debate because it reminds us that many of us have experience of emigration. It was only when I was thinking about this debate that I remembered that I am the daughter of Irish emigrants. My parents emigrated from Mayo after getting married in the 1960s and I spent the first five years of my life in England. They returned in the 1970s. Then, 20 years later, my sister and my friends emigrated because they could not find jobs here. We must keep reminding ourselves of this phenomenon because it is such a major part of Irish society.

It is important that we cherish Irish people who have emigrated, whether they stay abroad or return. My parents were moderately well off. They were not poor in England. However, they experienced difficulties on returning to the wealthy Ireland of the 1970s. My father said there was a prevalent attitude that they should not be coming back because they were fine where they were. That attitude has persisted in Irish society. It was detectable in the comments of the late Brian Lenihan when he said: "We can't all live on a small island." When I raised the issue of emigrant housing at a county council meeting recently people had the same attitude. One official more or less said that we did not want to bring people back to be added to the waiting lists.

It is difficult even for people who have houses in the United Kingdom or the United States to return here because they must give up their houses, return to Ireland and go on a housing list for years as they cannot afford to buy a house here. I welcome the work done by Deputy Cowley in this regard and I have been doing my utmost to persuade my county council to implement an initiative like his, in the face of fierce resistance. My replacement on the council, who happens to be my father, is raising the same issue. We are the only two councillors in South Dublin County Council who have raised this issue. This is because of my parents' experience. They came from Mayo, and through visits to Ballina I became aware of the work being done by Deputy Cowley.

We need an overall agency. That is one of the recommendations in the report. It is due to the lack of an overall co-ordinated approach by county councils that we need an agency such as this. We cannot build houses for emigrants without money. Without resources, we cannot provide support for emigrants abroad or cherish the work they do in other countries. If the report is left on the shelf by the Government it will prove that the words of its members are empty rhetoric. They are exhibiting exactly the same attitude as that experienced by my mother and father when they wanted to return here in the 1970s.