Immigration: A Waterford delegate criticised the quota systems favouring immigrants in some universities.
Mark Coughlan said one university had allocated 15 per cent of the first-year places for people coming from "non-traditional backgrounds". The quota included people from minority cultural and ethnic groups.
"While I recognise the well-intentioned nature of this decision, I do not feel that quotas such as these are the way forward for ethnic minorities or for any other type of minority, and it does little to promote integration.
"In this case, admission to the university is not determined solely by the individual's ability or achievement. The person's ethnicity becomes a deciding factor and there is nothing positive about this, to my mind."
Mr Coughlan said immigration was good for Ireland. "The Irish economy needs an increase in population if it is to continue to grow." He added that the full integration of immigrants into Irish society was necessary if inter-racial and inter-cultural tensions were to be minimised. "It is very easy to be tribal about one's race, culture and religion, and this tribalism can have devastating consequences for a society."
Delegates passed a motion calling on the Government to acknowledge the importance of and necessity for proper and well-managed immigrant integration.
Dublin South TD Liz O'Donnell said that perhaps the most exciting change to have taken place in the past 10 years of economic prosperity had been the change from mass emigration, and all the despair it created, to net inward migration.
She said the Department of Justice had the traditional role and responsibility of Border control, predominantly a security function. "Working to positively welcome and integrate people who migrate legally here for work, and whom we desperately need, takes a completely different mindset, and maybe even department."
