A Government taskforce is to recommend closer and far more supportive links to emigrants, writes Mark Hennessy
An investigation of the lives enjoyed, or sometimes endured, by more than a million Irish emigrants would make interesting reading at any time. Given the current debate about immigration, however, it is especially pertinent.
Last year, the Government created a taskforce on policy regarding emigrants, under the chairmanship of Mr Paddy O'Hanlon, to review existing policies and suggest new routes.
The taskforce's work is not yet completed, but a late draft of the report will require tens of millions in additional State funding and a much different mindset on the part of both national and local authorities. More help for official and voluntary welfare agencies is also required.
More help should be given to those wanting to end their days here, even if that number is few.
Despite recent prosperity, 20,000 Irish people annually leave these shores in search of new lives. Often, due to poverty, poor education and family breakdown, they are frequently those least prepared for life in another country.
The debt owed to emigrants should not be forgotten, says the taskforce. Many sent home valuable remittances, or, more recently, steered large donations to Irish universities and other institutions.
Hundreds of thousands have done well in their new homes, and constitute a "resource" for their less fortunate fellows and their home country if properly harnessed, it advises.
"The taskforce believes that the Government has a responsibility to assist and support its emigrants abroad who are in need and to ensure that, as far as possible, those who emigrate are prepared for the challenges," the report says.
Given Ireland's history, the Government should make migration a key issue for its upcoming EU Presidency in 2004: "Ireland is in a unique position to contribute to the formation of policy," the report argues.
In particular, "immediate assistance" is needed for those who left in the 1950s exodus: "Older emigrants face particular problems. Many had to settle, at least in the early stages, for insecure manual jobs.
"They made inadequate provision for their retirement. Now, as they reach retirement age, many of them require special assistance," the report states.
In future, the Department of Foreign Affairs should have responsibility for emigration policy rather than letting responsibility be shared between numerous government departments and agencies.
Using a new body called the Agency for the Irish Abroad, Irish diplomatic missions should be given extra staff to cope with the new workload, while existing Irish voluntary welfare groups should be given more funding, it says.
However, the full scale of the problem is, as yet, unquantifiable: "Much of the research that has been carried out needs to be updated and there are many areas where no research at all has been undertaken." Learning more about emigrants could help to inform Ireland's own immigration debate. "The taskforce is conscious that its consideration of the needs of Irish emigrants is taking place at a time of substantial inward migration.
"Many of these are returning Irish emigrants but an increasing number are foreign nationals, embarking on a similar journey to a new and hopefully better life that so many Irish people have made in the opposite direction.
"The more we appreciate the needs of foreign nationals coming to Ireland, the better able we will be to respond to the challenges facing our own emigrants abroad."
Every single domestic policy embarked upon by the Government should take emigrants' needs into account, while every local authority and agency should detail officials to deal with the issue.
For too long, emigration was a dirty word in Ireland. Successive governments were "reluctant" to prepare properly those preparing to leave "because of the fear that this could be perceived as encouraging emigration".
In future, Ireland should "for the first time in our history" offer advice for those intending to leave, says the report, by using the social, personal and health education programme beginning in primary and second-level schools from later this year.
The plight of the undocumented Irish in the US also requires attention and more funding is needed for bodies such as the Emerald Isle Immigration Centre in New York, and elsewhere, the authors argue.
"They are susceptible to exploitation and, because they cannot obtain health insurance, are vulnerable in the event of illness and accident," they write of Irish emigrants, in words that may well strike a note with foreigners currently working in the Republic.