(Number one in an occasional series)
Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea, writing in his Sunday Independent column in Summer 2002, spoke out about the Nice Treaty then being debated in the country. He told us:
"The second myth is that the Nice Treaty will mean mass immigration from the new EU member countries in Eastern Europe. This is probably the most odious of the myths propagated by some in the "No" campaign."
According to today's Irish Times, over 200,000 people legally migrated to Ireland for work last year, and of those 130,000 came from the new accession states. Just so we're clear - this number does not include asylum seekers or illegal migrants.
The Times quotes the Department of Social and Family Affairs thus:
"Of the 130,000 PPS numbers provided to accession-state nationals during 2006, most were from Poland (87,115), followed by Lithuania (14,805), Slovakia (9,857) and Latvia (7,368)."
Now, doesn't that sound just a little like the mass immigration from new EU member countries in Eastern Europe that Willie O'Dea vociferously swore wasn't going to happen?
4 comments:
The Irish economy relies on those 200,000 workers for our economy to florish.
What we must guard against is the exploitation of these by employers and in times of economic trouble we must not let these workers be singled out as having taken Irish jobs.
These workers have chosen Ireland are here legally and should welcome them.
Excuse me? My point is that Willie O'Dea blatantly and cynically lied to the populace that over 5% of the population would be immigrant within 2 years of his statement.
I'm still waiting on the economist who can demonstrate the long-term benefits of 200,000 Polish graduates in McJobs to either Poland or Ireland's economy. Answer is, it's no great help to either.
And Irish Ferries and GAMA incidents have certainly demonstrated the extent to which the Government and public here care for migrant worker exploitation. That would be 'not at all', by the way.
Finally, on what grounds am I required to welcome any random stranger to this country? I don't see that in the constitution.
Feel free to drop back and address the issue of the Government lying to you, PQ. Don't bother if you just want to give us more po-faced, lemon-sucking PC twaddle that you haven't even bothered to think through, though.
It could be worse. At least it isn't a million tinkers invading, and at least the Poles can all read. They can also say "thank you" which isn't a skill our locals seem to have grasped.
Don't pay any attention to Willie. Sure aren't we listening to him the whole time here in Limerick, and we don't pay a blind bit of notice to him.
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