Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the contribution by the Minister, Deputy Martin. He gave us a great deal of information. He spoke about the change that has taken in place in our economy since the early 1980s. The Minister, like me, will remember how things were at that time. There are students from St. Fiachra's senior national school, Beaumont, in the Visitors Gallery this morning and none of them will understand the type of life we had in the mid-1980s. My daughter finished university in 1986. There were 38 students in her class and 37 of them emigrated.

I was talking to a man yesterday on an aeroplane who told me that his son is currently working in a bank in London. When he had mentioned this to another person, the reaction was, "Is it not a shame that he had to emigrate?" However, the son had gone to work in the bank in London because he likes working there and is gaining experience before returning to this country. I mention this because the next generation will not understand the threat of emigration and how much our economy has changed, to the extent that we now have immigrants.

I have some concerns. The New York Times last Saturday published a series of letters from people complaining about the protests organised in the United States by illegal immigrants. A number of the immigrants were Irish. It was interesting to note the tone and tenor of those letters. The clear attitude was, "Who are these people? Why do they not adjust? Why do they not learn English? Why do they not accept our way of life?" That reflects some of my concerns.

I once visited Salt Lake City in Utah. The room my wife and I stayed in had been in a boarding house and had been the room of a polygamist's wife in the 1890s. Until 1890, polygamy was permitted in Utah. However, when Utah became part of the United States it was told it could no longer permit polygamy and that it must adjust to the way of life in the United States. The people had to learn English and adjust to the union.

Senator Hanafin spoke about the different traditions of people who come to this country, perhaps even in regard to drugs, which we do not share. We must find a way of having these people understand our way of life. I have dealt with many employees. It has been a joy to see employees from other countries settle in Ireland and accept our way of life. They have blossomed and grown and mixed with our culture. They have become Irish and readily learned to speak English. However, I have also seen other employees who have come here to work, usually in menial and unenviable jobs, and often they do not learn the language. The people with whom they work, speak their native languages and, when they go home, they go to what is almost a ghetto somewhere in Dublin. They do not accept the new life.

I was one of the members of the Joint Committee on European Affairs who asked that we discuss this issue with FÁS. When representatives from FÁS came to discuss this with the committee, we asked them whose job it was to deal with this issue. That is probably partially responsible for this debate because we realised that no single person had that job.

The most shocking thing that emerged from the work of the committee and that gave rise to the report is the fact that no person or organisation is responsible for overseeing the all-important task of integrating our immigrants into society. There are plenty of people and bodies foostering around on the edges of the problem but there is nobody in charge or taking responsibility for ensuring the job is done. Above all, there is no political responsibility for this task.

The Minister, Deputy Martin, gave us interesting and good reports on all the work being done but it is not being co-ordinated. There is no single person, agency, Department or Minister with responsibility for this area. Perhaps this headless chicken approach is borne out of an idea that, willy-nilly, integration will look after itself or will happen automatically over time. That assumption is fatally flawed and if we persist with it, we will store up trouble for the future.

One can see in Europe that integration of immigrants does not just happen by itself. It is a difficult and time consuming process which must be managed carefully and actively. The consequences of failure to do this are not difficult to find. Consider what happened in France last summer. France paid lip service to the idea that the people who came to the country from north Africa over the previous 40 years or so would integrate. However, nothing was done over almost half a century to make it happen in practice and to change and integrate the lives of the immigrant population.

The riots of last summer were an indication of how deeply rooted the problem is. It did not happen overnight but was festering for a long time. Every new person who comes to live with us brings his or her own culture and language which each highly values. When people choose to emigrate, they come into new challenges. If immigrants are to integrate properly in their host country, they must recognise they have two cultures and two languages. Immigrants need not turn their backs on their original language and culture but must expand their horizons of their new homeland. Some will readily accept this challenge. In the time-honoured phrase to describe the Normans, there will be those who will become more Irish than the Irish themselves.

Not everyone, however, is like that. Vast numbers of immigrants need to be helped to integrate into our society. It is our responsibility as the host country to take the lead in this respect. Doing so is not an act of generosity but one of self-interest. I have spoken before of how easy it is for new immigrants to live within a cultural and linguistic bubble and, usually, find themselves at the bottom of the pile. Some immigrants will only interact with their own compatriots, working and living with them. While it is natural to cling to one's own, it is a bad sign if it has the effect that they remain separate from the language and culture of our country. This problem must be addressed.

Our experience is different from that of most other countries. I know of nowhere where immigration has happened so fast and on such a large scale. The upshot of this is while other countries have had a long period to adapt to it, we do not have that luxury. What happened in other countries in 30 years happened in Ireland in ten years. As a result, we run the risk of being swamped by the problem and its sheer size.

The past few years have seen an enormous influx of immigrant children into our schools. The Minister covered many areas in his speech but not this issue. Few schools have no immigrant children. In some schools, the majority of pupils are immigrants. If a child arrives at a school without being able to speak English, he or she is at a major disadvantage. Children cannot be expected to pick up English as they go along, particularly if their native language is spoken at home. If one relies on that approach, the child will always lag behind, not just in English but in every other subject. When these children arrive at a school, they require a specialised instruction in English as a second language and not as a first. Until the child is reasonably competent in English, he or she will not be able to take a full part in the class.

The Department of Education and Science has responded to this challenge by allocating 800 English language teachers. When I first discovered this, I believed the figure was mistaken. It may seem an enormous number of teachers. However, when the figure is considered nationally, it is an inadequate response to a large problem that has suddenly crept up on us. The Department is to be commended for reacting at all and so quickly. The heart-breaking fact is that its efforts are only a drop in the ocean compared with what is needed.

If we do not grasp this nettle and teach all immigrant children a competence in the English language, we know for certain what will happen. They will become the backward ones in school. They will become the ones turned off school because they cannot do well. These are the kind of children who drop out of school along the way. Even if they do persevere, many of them will leave without sufficient qualifications. We have seen the consequences of this with our own disadvantaged children. Doing badly at school and dropping out is a ticket to failure in life and drug and crime problems. We have been trying to grasp this, unsuccessfully, in the case of Irish children.

Overnight, the problem has mushroomed into a challenge of enormous proportions. To address it properly will require much manpower and financial resources. This is the price we must pay to ensure a future without social unrest. We must invest in our immigrant children. This will not happen if different Departments and Ministers are asked to take an interest in it. I am not particularly keen on the term "co-ordinate", which has popped into the debate in recent years. This is an area where the responsibility is given to one Minister and Department. If this is done, we will have got to the start of solving the problem.