Government action to help the Irish emigrants to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s was called for by the Labour Party in a Private Member's motion.
The motion, which will be voted on tonight, noted that this group of emigrants were believed to have remitted, between 1939 and 1969, £3.5 billion to the Republic, playing a crucial role in sustaining families and communities at a time of dire poverty.
The party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said the State owed a debt to those people. "As a result of failed economic policy at home they could find no work, no living in the then Ireland. But there was work in Britain. There these men laboured hard, regularly in appalling and dangerous conditions and often had to face racial prejudice, actually to rebuild a war-damaged country."
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said he had secured an additional €1 million for services to emigrants this year, bringing the overall expenditure to just over €4 million, an increase of one-third on last year.
