A significant number of Poles living in Ireland will return to their homeland to participate in the development of their own country, the president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, predicted yesterday.
Speaking through an interpreter after meeting Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at Government Buildings yesterday afternoon, Mr Kaczynski said he was also convinced that those who do return to Poland will "definitely promote the image of your country of Ireland in Poland.
"I also realise that they have good training, that they have good qualifications, that they will be able to upgrade their qualifications in Ireland, because your economy is more productive, its capacity is larger than ours," he said. "But our economy will also develop very much, and they will have their contribution in the development of our economy, they will participate in the development of our country just the way they are participating in such a magnificent growth of your country at the moment.
"I do believe that a significant number of them will return to our country. I was told that a significant number of the Irish people who emigrated from Ireland returned later to their homeland, and the same, I suppose, will also go for Poles in Ireland. But this is how it happens and this is also the logic of the EU."
Following their meeting, Mr Ahern said that Ireland was "privileged" to have presided over the historic enlargement of the EU in 2004. "Economic relations between our two countries are excellent, our trade is growing, and many Irish people have made substantial positive investments in Poland, and we expect this welcome trend to continue into the years ahead," he said.
"We would like to think that all of the Polish people who have worked here will now have a special relationship in Ireland and they would keep that, so it will help the understanding between our two countries in a way that never was possible before."
Among the topics discussed at yesterday's meeting between the two men was the issue of the EU constitution. Asked about this, Mr Ahern said he was "determined that we should keep the entire discussion on the existing text.
"I know that we have to be supportive of those countries that have difficulties, in some cases that could maybe mean reformulating the constitution agreement as we have it, but we should keep to the balances that we have agreed," he said.
"There are a number of countries that have issues that they want to tease out . . . it will require some discussion, some debate, but I believe that it is possible."
Mr Kaczynski arrived in Ireland on Sunday night. His official State visit yesterday took in a 21-gun salute and a private meeting with President Mary McAleese at Áras an Uachtaráin, followed by the laying of a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance.
At a State dinner for Mr Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, at Áras an Uachtaráin last night, Mrs McAleese said the Irish people had watched his country's struggle for freedom, "willing you on to independence and subsequently membership of the European Union".
"Poland and Ireland are both countries and peoples recently freed from the many shackles that kept them from rising to their true level. We are on a common journey as members of the European Union," she said.
"Today the children of Poland and Ireland grow up in that union as partners, as friends, as neighbours . . . indeed some of your countrymen and women are helping to build up Ireland's future with their skills, their experience and their talent."