Brendan Ryan (Labour)

This debate was characterised by a profound depth of feeling. There is agreement about the scale of the disaster we allowed to fall upon our society. I do not blame anyone in particular for this, but we failed as a society. The amount of emigration that took place was neither necessary nor inevitable.

Political debate, however, is not the place for a group catharsis of deeply held emotions. It is about making things happen. People have said they would like to see more money. I will make things clear: the Opposition can say we would like to see more money, but Government can provide more money. When more money is not provided it is not because somebody else decided not to allocate it. It is because the Government made a decision not to. A decision was taken that money could be better spent on other things or that more money would not be raised because of issues of taxation. These are not aspirational matters or accidental consequences; they are deliberate policies. It is the difference between government and opposition.

I say this as the grandson of an American citizen. My late grandfather on my mother's side was an American citizen. I suspect that if I ever tell the American Embassy I am probably entitled to American citizenship, a minor reverberation will occur in the relationship between this State and the USA. I would not be its preferred extra citizen.

We are all touched by emigration. We all feel strongly about it. However, it is time we moved beyond feeling and charity. In the Catholic bishops' document on justice, issued many years ago and forgotten by most people, the very valid point is made that charity is what one does after justice has been instituted. It is not a substitute for justice, nor is it a precursor to justice. The 200,000 people living on our nearest island who were let down and abandoned by this country and in many cases, as Senator O'Toole correctly pointed out, exploited by their fellow Irish citizens when they went to work in Britain, require justice, not charity or a feeling of guilt. Justice demands that we look after them. To talk about the responsibility of other countries is a cop-out.

I must repeat the point made by my colleague, Senator O'Meara. In the Minister of State's speech, apart from the gobbledegook of putting together figures from 1984 to 1996 to make a small sum look larger and the amalgamation of figures over a number of years, there was the implication not only that the Government had decided to allocate very little money, but that somebody else had then stopped that money, so that the agency could not be set up. The agency is not being set up because the Government will not allocate the money to make it work.

The agency is the nub of the issue. It is not about a group of well intentioned civil servants in the Department of Foreign Affairs whose capacity and ability I and every other Member of this House know. The real problem of an agency is encapsulated in the Minister of State's speech. This problem requires and demands a multi-agency response across Departments. Civil servants within the Department of Foreign Affairs would not be able to point the finger publicly at other Departments. An agency under the aegis of the Department but separate from it would have both the moral authority and the legal status to do precisely that. When that agency is set up there will be no problem with finding sufficient causes on which to spend the money. The real issue is that the Government decided not to spend the money recommended by the task force and is continuing to refrain from spending it. The issue is not whether we feel good or bad, but a decision made by Government that these people do not count.

Amendment put.