State has 'done its bit' for EU labour mobility - Ahern

Ireland has "done its bit" for free access within the EU, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern has told the Dáil as he defended the decision to restrict labour access to Romania and Bulgaria, which join in January.

He rejected claims that the Opposition had not been consulted on the issue announced on Tuesday, following a similar move by Britain.

Fine Gael spokesman Bernard Allen claimed the announcement was made "on the coat-tails of the UK announcement". He said that "when the UK authorities jumped, we jumped after them in the absence of any consultation with the other political parties".

Disagreeing with Mr Allen, the Minister said, "the Taoiseach and the British prime minister had agreed that the announcements would be made on the same day. We had been in constant contact. It had nothing to do with following the British slavishly, off the top of our heads." He also said he had taken part in a number of discussions at Oireachtas committees about Bulgaria and Romania's accession.

Mr Ahern said he had made the point a number of times that "Ireland has taken in almost half as many workers from the new member states as the UK, which has a population 15 times greater than the population of Ireland".

He said that Ireland, Britain and Sweden were the only three EU member states to allow free labour access when 10 countries joined the Union in 2004 and just 10,000 people from the accession states went to Sweden.

"This is an indication that Ireland has done its bit to provide for free access, by and large." The contacts with the British on the issue of labour access "does not relate to the issue of the common travel area between Ireland and Britain. It relates more to the fact that if the British authorities introduced restrictions but we did not, Ireland would be the only English-speaking country in the EU without any restrictions. In our view that might have led to larger numbers than normal coming to our shores."

Mr Allen, who acknowledged that "the Government's decision may have been forced on it", asked what pressures were being placed on other governments to open their labour markets.

Mr Ahern said European colleagues were surprised at the numbers that had come to Ireland. "There is pressure on other countries, but they must make their own decisions and cannot slavishly follow others," he said.