Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Cooney for coming to this Chamber. He honours us with his presence. I thank him on behalf of all the undocumented Irish - all 50,000 of them - for his work over the years, tireless work that he did for free on behalf of the Irish at home and abroad, which is not often recognised. However, today we have the opportunity to recognise his work and that of Senator Billy Lawless and many others who have done so much. We have often gone up to the hill in hope and come back down in despair. The first time I met Mr. Cooney was at one of those meetings in Anne Anderson's house at which tactics were being discussed regarding the Senate Bill, which was passed. I happened to be in the Senate chamber for the passing of that Bill but, unfortunately, when it went to the other side of the hill, it did not succeed. However, I thank Mr. Cooney for all his work because his advice and knowledge from being on the hill down through the years, working on the judiciary committee, help us to navigate what is quite a complex political system as much as anything else.

The issue before us is personal and huge in the context of this country because, with 50,000 undocumented Irish people living in the United States, it affects one in ten people at home, including grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters. That is 500,000 people on this island directly affected by the issue of the undocumented Irish in the United States. That is 500,000 people here who cannot get a loved one home for a funeral, family event or tragedy. That is 10% of this nation. That is what makes it such an important issue. The appointment of Jimmy Deenihan as the first ever Minister of State with responsibility for the diaspora, followed by the appointment of Deputy Joe McHugh as Minister of State with responsibility for the diaspora and the nomination of Billy Lawless as a Senator shows that this nation considers this issue and the issue of the Irish all over the world to be important.

Mr. Cooney outlined the position over the past 30 years and where it has gone. The most recent failure was the executive order that would have helped half of the 50,000 undocumented Irish but which went to the Supreme Court and was shot down. That executive order was hugely controversial because the President was taking action and taking it on himself to bring some measure of change to the issue of those who are undocumented in the United States. Our 50,000 is a mere drop in the ocean when it comes to the 11 million or 12 million people whose presence in the United States, as Congressman Peter King said, is a security issue as much as anything else. We should regularise their status, so that we know who they are. In this age of global terrorism, that is a security issue. Building a wall does not make us more secure. As the former Soviet Union discovered, a wall did not help it in the end. It is, therefore, a matter of reform of the system from within, from a security point of view as much as anything else.

Our questions from this side of the House concern that Senate Bill, on which Mr. Cooney worked, for which he lobbied and as part of which he secured 12,500 visas for Ireland. When other nations went knocking on the door asking why they were not included, it was because the Irish, through the assistance of Mr. Cooney, Senator Billy Lawless, the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, Ciaran Staunton and many others that we were able to secure that. The ambassador and the embassy have also done a huge amount of work on this issue as has the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. As Mr. Cooney will know, under the US 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, those 17,500 visas that Ireland had, and which 35 other countries had, changed for the worse when it came to Ireland and led to this situation where we now have so many undocumented over there.

We are talking in a vacuum in that there is a US presidential election coming up. The outcome of that election, as Mr. Cooney has clearly outlined, has two forks in the road in terms of which way it will go. It will go down an enforcement road with the building of walls at great expense but without much outcome or it will go down the road of an attempt at the very difficult process of immigration reform. Will that Senate Bill be the one Senator Chuck Schumer will take up and carry on? Obviously, we have a vested interest in that Bill being the one that moves forward. We met Speaker Paul Ryan previously and Mr. Cooney outlined clearly that his problems are not the Democrats but with his own caucus because of the tensions within it. Is there any chance Mr. Cooney could prevail on a former presidential candidate for whom he worked, Mr. McCain, to throw his hat back into the ring? He might be a better candidate than the one the Republican Party has chosen.