John Dardis (Progressive Democrats)

I join with other Members in welcoming the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Killeen, to the House. I, along with Senators Quinn and McDowell, am a member of the joint committee that produced the report. The report represents consensus but inevitably with consensus there are nuances and some Members may take a different approach to aspects of the report.

When Senator Quinn spoke about the multicultural aspect of our schools, I noted a class of schoolchildren in the Visitors Gallery. It was evident from looking at the class that what he was referring to was in our midst. Each day we are reminded how much the country has changed, even without the arrival of people from other countries who have come to live with us. An article in today's edition of The Irish Times highlighted that 200,000 immigrants from the former EU accession states are registered to work in Ireland. More than half of these workers are Polish. Newbridge, County Kildare, has a large Polish population and a Polish mass is held on Sundays. Polish, African and Chinese groups participated in the town's St. Patrick's Day parade. Immigrants participate fully in the life of the town and they have improved society enormously. It has given the Irish a much broader view of the world. While I welcome these changes, I accept there are important challenges which are dealt with in the report.

As mentioned by Senator Hanafin, the Irish, with their experience, should empathise with immigrants. Christy Moore, in his song "The Rose of Tralee", tells of going looking for digs in London and being told by the woman of the house, "There'll be absolutely no blacks nor Paddies gettin' in here." This was, unfortunately, the situation faced by many Irish migrants. We must learn from the experience of finding a home for so many of our people in other cultures. It should be easy for us to understand and accommodate those who come to live with us.

I agree with Senator Hanafin's comments on the backup the State provides for migrants' organisations in London and elsewhere. There are obligations on those states whose citizens come to live in Ireland. They should provide supports so these people do not experience what many Irish people did in London, arriving off the boat with no idea of where to sleep or get a job. Some Irish people fell through society and wound up sleeping rough on the streets of London and other cities.

The integration of newcomers to our society is a major challenge. The Celtic tiger is an economic magnet for immigrants from the EU accession states and elsewhere in search of a new life. The challenge is made that more difficult by the overall pace of change in the country. Between 1990 and 1994, Ireland was the only country of the EU 15 with negative net migration. I recall how depressed the country was in the decades before then. Between 1995 and 1999 the average annual migration rate was second only to Luxembourg in the EU so that is a dramatic change.

There are no signs that immigration will end soon. NCB stockbrokers recently stated that the population of the Republic will grow by 30% to over 5.3 million by 2020 and to 6 million by 2050. We also await the results of the recent census with interest. Migrants could account for 20% of the population by 2020, something on which we as policy makers must focus and which will require a change in mindset. The challenge 20 years ago was to staunch the flow of emigration and the haemorrhaging of our younger people while today the challenge is how to integrate new immigrants into Irish society.

There is a need for accurate assessment of developments and challenges so that we form the right policy. In that respect, I welcome the work of the committee and the production of the report because it highlights an important subject that was being neglected to an extent. The report may not be perfect — the size of the challenge makes that impossible — but it is a valuable step forward by the Oireachtas to assess the position of migrant workers in Ireland over the last two or three years. Ireland needs these workers to keep the economy going and we must assess the experience of these welcome and valuable members of our society.

The report is based on information gleaned from engagement with the many groups and Departments and sets out what the committee sees as the background to the challenge, the nature of integration, how other countries have acted in this regard and then makes some recommendations. It demands debate and the complexity of immigration in Irish society calls for our close attention.

I have some constructive criticisms of the report, mainly on how it sets out and reaches its conclusions. It would have been useful to set out some of the statistics illustrating the extent to which inward migration has been much greater than anticipated. This would have indicated how Departments and agencies made assessments and would help us to avoid similar underestimation in the future. There is an early statement of the committee's view that a single Department might take overall responsibility for immigration and integration. It is not, however, until later in the report that there is a justification for this proposal, that such a step would be a welcome political statement. That is not unimportant but it is hardly the foremost catalyst for a significant step.

The report describes an aspirational Ireland as an exciting, young, highly skilled, outward looking society where wealth is created to the benefit of all and where the contribution of each member of society is recognised and cherished. I accept that today's Ireland is not without its problems but it is fair to say that notwithstanding a utopian view of the country, Irish people have created a society not so far removed from that description. The report also employs strong language such as "wasted lives" and poses questions where answers, even if tentative, would have been more useful.

Another concern is the reference to three alternative objectives of integration, namely, multiculturalism, assimilation and exclusionism. A fourth objective favoured by the Progressive Democrats should have been included, that is, interculturalism. The excellent work of Philip Watts and others in this respect should have been considered.

The report's claim that a new self-image has not been created in modern Ireland is inaccurate. Ireland has become a much more positive, outward looking, innovative and enterprising nation, with many successful international cultural, sporting and economic reference points, all of which, combined with our collective experience and history, give us a definite, positive self image. Senator Quinn mentioned the 1980s. Those of us who recall times before entry into the Common Market remember how depressed the country was. We had no positive self image, our nearest neighbour was dominant in our psyche. There has been a hugely positive effect on our image of ourselves and our confidence as a nation as a result of our membership of the European Union. That was one of the huge benefits that is not alluded to; we frequently talk about the economic aspect but our self image has been utterly transformed by the European experience.

The conclusion in the report that a single Department take responsibility for immigration and integration is problematic. I do not disagree fundamentally with Senator Quinn, there is a need for a single guiding hand, but taking the elements out of the different Departments that are competent to deal with them would be a questionable aspect. The final section of the report sets out individual immigration activities and challenges facing the Departments of Health and Children, Education and Science, Arts, Sport and Tourism and Enterprise, Trade and Employment. That demonstrates the complexity of the challenge. This argues in many ways against having a single Department for immigration and integration. The issues are so complex, diverse and specific to the various agencies that bringing them together may not be the best choice.

The idea, perhaps, had its genesis in the confusion between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on overlapping aspects and responsibilities. To go beyond that, however, into a single Department is going too far, although there must be co-ordination. Why would we remove responsibility for language education in primary school from the Department of Education and Science or responsibility for vaccination programmes from the Department of Health and Children? Whatever about duplication, is this the best way to serve new members of our society?

I have a Nigerian friend who made the point that there should be more consultation with the various national groups that come to our country. Leadership is important in achieving the objectives mentioned by Senator Quinn in bringing the community with us and the best way to do that is to have a close working relationship with the leaders of the individual national communities. That is not as formally institutionalised as it should be.

The challenge today is to integrate new immigrants into Irish society and this challenge is good news, not a threat. The Progressive Democrats believe that immigration has no downside, economically or socially, and if there is a downside, it will be a result of a failure of policy and governance. There are important obligations on Government but we must careful to resist racism, exploitation and trafficking. The focus must be on those areas and attempts to understand the cultural and ethnic elements that make up society. I was in Estonia last week and asked if there was any evidence of difficulties being experienced by those who had come to Ireland. I was told there was none but that does not mean exploitation has not taken place.

I welcome the committee's report, the work that went into it and, most importantly, the debate being precipitated in this and the other House. The Progressive Democrats are proud of the part we have played in shaping modern Ireland and driving the economic prosperity that pulls newcomers to this island to participate in our growth. It follows, therefore, that we have a major responsibility to avoid the mistakes of other countries who have failed in this area.

We must especially avoid the creation of an underclass because we have seen what happened in other European countries. There have been riots and other major social difficulties and it is all because of exclusion. People were put into ghettoes and left to fend for themselves without the state taking an interest in them. That has implications for all of us, not just those people who come to live here. All parties and groups must engage as fully as possible in the process for the benefit of the Irish people, old and new. We look forward to the day soon when we will have representatives of the communities that have come to live here represented in our Parliament.