Emigrants being neglected - Labour

Immigrant centres for the Irish in Britain are being starved of funding by the Government, the Labour Party claimed yesterday after a delegation returned from a fact-finding trip.

Labour's chief whip, Mr Emmet Stagg, said the delegation found emigrants and their representatives were being "shamefully neglected" by the Government. This was despite the fact that emigrants had sent £3.5 billion home in the 1950s and 1960s and kept the country economically afloat, Mr Stagg said.

He said the Government had accepted the findings of the Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigration yet it provided only €8 million in funding this year, while the Task Force proposed a figure of €18 million for 2003 rising to €34 million in 2005.

"The Government has been hinting that Irish organisations have the capacity to spend only that money but we've seen that this is simply not true," he said.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern, visited London last week to meet voluntary groups. He said funding for such groups would significantly increase in 2005.

Mr Stagg said that when he visited the Teach na hÉireann centre in Coventry with Deputies Willie Penrose and Kathleen Lynch, they found it could open only for two days a week because it did not have enough resources.

Luton Irish Forum was about to lose its premises because it was being converted into housing, he said. The Immigrant Counselling and Psychotherapy Office in London was operating out of an annex to a house, Mr Stagg said.

He pointed out that Irish emigrants had the highest incidence of psychiatric illness of any ethnic group in Britain.

Emigrants had many psychological issues to deal with, Mr Stagg said. Some of them felt they had been obliged to emigrate and as they grew older they felt they were not wanted in the Ireland or England.

"Often, these people only want to talk to Irish people. They won't deal with English services because they have built up all these barriers."

The Labour Party delegation heard three recurring requests from Irish emigrants in Coventry, Birmingham, Luton and London.

"Pensioners want to be entitled to free travel when they come back here, as a recognition that they are Irish," Mr Stagg said.

"They want access to Irish TV stations. Since the Tara channel closed, they don't have that access. And like so many other emigrants, they feel they should be entitled to a vote here."

The Labour Party tabled a Dáil motion in January condemning what it said was the Government's neglect of emigrants and its failure to implement the recommendations of the 2002 task force policy report. The motion called for the establishment of an agency for the Irish abroad and a funding scheme for care and support services to elderly returning emigrants in supported housing accommodation.