Labour leader Pat Rabbitte yesterday described a speech by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny on immigration this week as "thought-provoking" and "powerful" and called for a wider debate on the issue. Miriam Donohoe, Political Staff, reports.
"From what I read of his speech it was very thoughtful and there is absolutely no reason why we should have a taboo on discussing this issue," he said on a constituency visit to Tipperary.
Mr Kenny said on Monday that immigrants should be refused entry if they had serious criminal records and deported if they were jailed here for five years or more. Ireland had the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of other countries and to benefit hugely from those who had come to live in Ireland, he said.
Mr Rabbitte said yesterday immigration had the capacity to "greatly enrich Irish society" but only if we "patiently and carefully manage it".
"As I pointed out a year ago, and I am glad that the rest of the political establishment has caught up with me now, there is a necessity for us to patiently manage it and not just regard people coming here as a source of cheap labour."
He agreed with Mr Kenny's proposal for the appointment of a minister of state for immigration and integration. "I have schools in my constituency that have more than 40 nationalities, many who cannot speak English. The teachers are absolutely stretched. There is no provision for the teaching of English, for example."
He said there were a number of ideas in the speech, which he described as "a powerful one" which must be taken seriously.
Mr Rabbitte said there were no plans for the two parties to do a joint proposal on immigration before the election, but said it was something the two leaders had broadly discussed in the past.
He said the facts remained that some people at the bottom of the ladder here were being displaced by cheaper labour. "We had the outrageous scandal last week of Mr Ahern the Taoiseach doling out €4.3 million of taxpayers' money to a company, Irish Ferries, to displace Irish workers and to replace them with cheaper labour."
He said in the Irish Ferries case, the jobs were manifestly not redundant, because they were being replaced by cheaper labour.