Brendan Ryan (Labour)

There was a report in today's newspaper on the new phenomenon of homeless immigrants. Those who have been here long enough to know how I came to this House will know of my connection with the Simon Community. Although I have been aware of this for a while I was asked not to make a public issue of it, however it has been done. In view of the refusal to give people from accession States access to our welfare system, if their job does not work out they have no recourse to supplementary welfare, rent allowance or employment assistance. If their jobs fall apart they end up on the streets. A disproportionate number are being encountered by those who provide services for the homeless.

If we are not to create another underclass, one cut off by language and culture, it is time we intervened vigorously. Nobody who comes to this country to work should end up in a state of misery sleeping on our streets. I do not care how it is done, what we do with the law or what are the issues involved. We cannot claim to be a welcoming country for people who come to work here if we allow them to be abandoned on the streets because of the inadequacy of our welfare system.

I would like the Leader to allow us to have a debate on the international armaments race. Yesterday the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute revealed that last year, the world spent $900 billion on armaments. It is the most astonishing sum, is approximately five times Ireland's annual gross domestic product and dwarfs the international drugs industry by a factor of approximately ten. While the world is in perpetual uproar, correctly, about the international drugs trade, the sale of arms to tyrants, dictators and terrorists is tolerated all over the world. The difference is that drugs are made by poor people and sold to rich people while arms are generally made by rich people and sold to poor people. It is overdue for a House of the Oireachtas to debate this issue and the increasing evidence that Ireland is getting tangled up in it.