Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Allow me to finish, please. No serious lawyer contends that any Irish court would say to any person, of whatever nationality before it, that his or her fundamental rights did not apply because he did not see the person's Irish citizenship certificate and ask to be shown the person's passport. That has never been our law and, in fairness, our courts have never gone down that road.

We have accorded the fundamental rights of the Irish Constitution to everyone, regardless of nationality. Nobody has ever made the claim successfully in any Irish court that a foreigner in our midst has a lower right to life, a lower right to their good name, a lower right to their freedom or that their home is not subject to inviolability or constitutional protection. The exact opposite has happened. I read recently that punitive damages were awarded against a landlord who unlawfully evicted a foreign family without going through due process. That was because their rights as humans to have the inviolability of their dwelling respected attracted the protection of Irish law, regardless of their status or nationality.

There are thousands of non-national children resident here. According to the 2002 census of population there were 133,000 EU nationals living and working in Ireland. Do any of them have lesser rights than Irish people? Does a Spanish woman or a Spanish man have more or less right to life or is their dwelling more or less inviolable then mine?

The answer is, clearly not. Many of those comprise families with children who, although EU citizens, are not Irish citizens. There are thousands of families resident in this State on the basis of an Irish citizen child because of the pre-L and O situation. Those non-national children's human rights and the human rights of their parents are of course fully protected by Irish law for as long as they are in the State. The rights of the brothers and sisters of the Irish-born citizen are identical in terms of fundamental rights.

Senator Ryan makes a good point which I accept, that at the moment the work permits system is predicated on a relationship between the migrant and a particular employer. It is easy to characterise it as a form of indentured labour or employer-specific status. I want the House to know that I am examining that issue and hope to bring before Government some form of green card system so that if one is a migrant in Ireland one can move from employment to employment and people are not tied down to one employment, subject to some control on abuse of the system. If somebody comes into Ireland to be a nurse or a psychiatrist, a draughtsman or a software engineer, he or she can go from that employment to some other employment without effectively invalidating their status in Ireland. I regard that as a rational change in our laws. It will be one in which the social partners will have an interest because it will require a number of fairly delicate steps to be taken. I agree with Senator Ryan that we should change and liberalise our laws and that people should not be here on the basis of one relationship with one employer. That is not a proper way to deal with the migration issue.

It should also be stated that eight out of ten people who appear to be different by virtue of their accent, skin colour or whatever, are here as economic migrants and are extremely welcome. They play a vital role, not simply in our economic and cultural well-being, but also in bringing to Ireland innovative outlooks and young blood to work in our society and prevent us from becoming what many other European societies are demographically fated to become, namely an ageing population dependent on a smaller and smaller younger cohort.

Migration is not merely good for Ireland, it is essential. We should not be minimalist in our attitude or in any way hard-hearted or mean-minded; we should embrace migration in a full-blooded manner and welcome it for the change that it brings to our country which, in my view, is a change for the better. It improves Irish society and makes it richer and more culturally diverse. It makes it more complete, more generous-minded and less introverted. I accept all that. I do not really need to have that point drummed home to me. Those are my central core beliefs and I believe the central core beliefs of the great majority of Irish people.

In my constituency in Dublin, which is roughly the area between Clanbrassil Street and Sandymount, there was in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, but not now in so many numbers, a very substantial Jewish population of between 4,000 and 5,000 people. That population has declined. This country was not generous to those people in terms of its migration policies and it was not generous to them in terms of its social exclusion of the Jewish population. I stood up and apologised at the first Holocaust memorial day for the way in which they were treated, particularly by the Irish State and I believe it was reasonable for me to do that. As far as I am concerned, in all of that time with that very significant population and in circumstances of religious intolerance of a type that no longer exists, there was remarkably little friction, strife, negativity or racism, despite all the social attitudes that drove Ireland in those decades. It was remarkable how well people got along together.

Later on, before the current wave of migration started, there was a significant south Asian — Indian and Pakistani — community in my constituency, centred around the College of Surgeons and other places. Growing up in that area as a child, where I have lived all my life, there were never significant problems. I have no doubt intolerance was shown by individuals from time to time but I have never seen a spark of communal intolerance of the type evident elsewhere in the world. The area elected Jewish Members of Dáil Éireann, for example.

I have never seen the kind of hatred and race-driven politics that have emerged in other states. Sometimes we have to keep what we do in perspective. I do not want to get into a blame game, but in Northern Ireland there are signs that some of the political extremists have exploited the race issue to isolate people in their community and have knocked in windows, burned out cars and so forth. That has never happened to a significant extent in this State so let us not talk ourselves into a situation that does not exist.

Senator Ryan is a man of passionate rhetoric.