Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister of State on his elevation and on his return to Leinster House. I am glad to see that he is involved in this area because he brings an energy with him in whatever area he works in. I look forward to seeing his progress as he works through this.

My interest in the diaspora is the people of my generation who left Ireland. I travelled on the boat. We travel abroad now and meet people who have their tablets and laptops, they are qualified engineers, accountants, architects, etc. For the people who left Ireland in my time, the only qualification they had was a shovel. Many of them did not have English. Quite a few of them were Irish speaking. The mailboat was the saddest, most horrible trip, and then there was the train from Holyhead to London. Many of these people lived in dingy bedsits. They lived tough, hard lives. It was said of an Irish immigrant in London that, if he met a good woman, he had some chance of making a life for himself, but many of them are now in their late 60s or early 70s living in the same bedsit. I remember people saving up for a month before they came home and buying new clothes before they arrived home. When they came home they created this impression that they were living great lives and had lots of money and that it was a great world. They went back then and lived tough lives until the next trip home. I recall one relative seeking out a relation who had gone to New York, who had been writing home for years about the wonderful life she had. They decided she was not going to come home so they had better go and see her as she was elderly now and might be dead soon. What they found was a woman living in abject poverty who had lived in abject poverty all of her life.

I spoke recently to the Irish ambassador, Martin Fraser, in London. He has tremendous empathy and willingness to go the extra mile to try to meet members of the diaspora who maybe never hit the headlines, who never made big money. Many of them never got home. Indeed, my colleague from Longford mentioned those who died. Frequently, we hear of an Irish person who died and who has no relative, nobody to see him or her off on that final journey. Communities come together and bring the bodies home. Indeed, our own Cathaoirleach does a lot of work in the United States with the diaspora. That is hugely important as well. As he will know, we did a trip with Billy Lawless, God rest his soul. At breakfast, there were about 300 or 400 people in the hall. It was a wonderful occasion. As we were leaving the hall, one of the delegation turned to me and said, "I would hate to be poor and to be Irish today", because you could not afford the breakfast. It was a fundraiser and cost big money to get into it. When we talk about the diaspora, let us also remember the ones that have been lost, the ones with nowhere other than a dingy bedsit to wait to die in. I will leave it at that.