Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister and I thank him for his interesting presentation. I thank the previous speaker, Senator Mooney, for his generous response to the Minister's proposal. It is good that in the case of such an important matter all sides of the House can sing from the one hymn sheet. In recent years and in the course of recent months since the new Government took over I have commented that every Department and Government proposal should be job-proofed, irrespective of which legislation we are attempting to introduce. Every measure should contribute in some way to the urgent need for job creation and this measure is a great plus in that sense.

Normally, we would not expect the Minister for Justice and Equality to come before us with measures designed to put people back to work and to get the economy up and running. The Minister's initiative is most welcome. Clearly, he has put a good deal of thought and serious intellectual capital into his presentation.

I agree with the Minister's comments on the previous passports for sale scheme. The Minister described it as discredited and it is fair to say as much. However, perhaps at the instigation of that scheme there were good ideas and proposals. It was not a complete disaster. Nevertheless, we needed a new variation on the scheme and the Minister is presenting an exciting twin-track approach.

I look forward to the final details and the application forms being available. I expect there will be significant international interest in what the Minister proposes.

The previous speaker mentioned what should have happened in the past in the context of a particular international community. Looking at the State of Israel today, we can see how the people of Israel have benefited from their constant communication with the Jewish community worldwide. Significant investment into the State of Israel comes on a daily basis from the broader Jewish diaspora and the state probably could not survive without it. We can learn a lot from that in the context of the tens of millions of people throughout the world who, while they may not be Irish and whose parents and grandparents may not be Irish, have historical links with Ireland. That market is there to be tapped and, hopefully, many of those people will be interested in this programme.

The Chinese angle has been mentioned by the Minister and the previous speaker. We must recognise that over the next number of decades the balance of the world's economic development will relate in some way to China. We must try to take advantage of that and seek investment from that state. In that regard, one of my colleagues, Senator Healy Eames, who cannot be here for this debate because she has to attend a conference, wanted to record her strong support for this proposal and her concern that we need to work harder and faster on the processing of visas for business visitors to Ireland. She mentioned that she has organised a conference in Galway on 23 March with Chinese business people coming to Galway and Ireland to examine trade and industry links with Ireland and asked me to stress here the difficulty that exists with regard to processing visas for this type of visit quickly enough. She is concerned there is significant delay and feels this needs to be addressed where bilateral investment opportunities are available. I support her in the effort to ensure the visa processing system is improved.

The Minister has made tremendous progress on the issue of citizenship applications and in removing the backlog. However, it can still take some time in some of our Irish embassies worldwide to process entry visas for Ireland. One of my colleagues told me that if someone, for example, wanted to go to Australia in a week's time, that person could go to a travel agency, book a flight and have a visa application processed there and then, all within ten or 15 minutes. However, where an Australian person wants to come to Ireland for a business visit or whatever, it can sometimes take days or weeks to have the visa processed. We need to make progress in that regard.

I believe there will be significant interest in the immigrant investor programme and the Minister has outlined some of the areas into which he would he would expect to see benefits flow. We should try to make a particular effort to attract interest in natural industries we want to promote, such as alternative energy, wind farms, forestry etc. We would be in a win-win situation if we could get outside investment into those areas as they require urgent investment. The minimum limits set by the Minister are realistic because we need to send out the message that we are talking about serious investment and investors rather than fly-by-night operators. The limits and targets set are helpful in that regard.

On the possibility of whether many of these people will move from five-year residency to longer-term citizenship, I hope that transpires to be the case. We must accept that the majority of people who would like to invest in our country would, at some stage, wish to become long-term residents, if not citizens. That route will be available after the normal five-year period and I welcome that. I will leave it at that as I have nothing further novel to say. This is a welcome and worthwhile measure and shows thinking outside the normal political box. I welcome that. If the country needs anything, it needs jobs, job creation and enterprise and this initiative will be a help in that regard. I wish the Minister well with the project.