Brendan Ryan (Labour)

It is worth noting that not only are the McCartney sisters seeking justice but they have already prevented three murders through their refusal to accept the route offered to them by the Provisional IRA. They have given an example to many through their ability to see the difference between justice and revenge, a distinction some are unable to make. Their behaviour is a salutary lesson to many.

This House must have a debate about our attitude to immigrants and immigration. We have all heard about the Turkish building company and its ill-treatment of migrant workers. The matter of this company's treatment of its workforce was brought to my attention when it was building a major road in Cork. On raising the issue informally with a senior official in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, I was assured everything was in order. It is disturbing to discover that a formal investigation by the Department has found this was not the case. I am concerned to have been told there was no problem in that Turkish workers were not being paid as much as Irish building workers but that the company was operating within Irish labour law.

It is disturbing that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment did nothing about these workers until a complaint was received. How are those whose only language is Turkish, Polish or Lithuanian, for example, to make a complaint to a Department in which the officials speak, at best, two languages? It is difficult enough to make a complaint to most Departments as Gaeilge not to mention attempting to do so in any other language.

My view of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is not as benign as that expressed by Senator O'Toole but I will restrain my comments. The record of the Department is not great in regard to the treatment of immigrants. It objected to any Jewish immigration in the 1940s and we now know it objected to the reception of Chilean refugees in the 1970s. This attitude seems to follow a pattern. How is the integrity of our immigration and asylum system threatened by allowing, on humanitarian grounds, a young man of 18 years to stay in the country rather than deporting him without money and identification papers? If a young Irish person were afforded such treatment by any other state, we would scream that it was a brutal and uncivilised country.