Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

These were the people who provided for and supported local families. They educated a generation of Irish who went on to build the Celtic tiger. There is something fundamentally odd in closing our doors to them or making it difficult to give them some positive consideration.

I was surprised at some of the negative comments on this provision. This small concession is the least we owe to people who were forced, out of economic circumstances, to emigrate in times when our economy was not doing well. When times were hard, emigrants' remittances were the lifeblood of many communities and families. It would be to our shame as a nation if we were to overlook that fact. When I worked in the Department of Finance, for example, there was a special line in our national income and expenditure tables dealing with——