Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity leader in Poland, admitted at the weekend that he was "saddened" by the huge drain of young workers from his homeland to countries with better economic conditions such as Ireland.
During a three-day visit to Co Mayo, Mr Walesa, who became president of Poland and won a Nobel Peace Prize, said those who were leaving were "the most entrepreneurial and effective" and their departure was having a social and economic impact on his country.
But he stressed that rather than be restrained, these young workers should be allowed leave to learn new skills and achieve their goals and ambitions and contribute to the growth of the expanding Europe.
Asked if he could predict when the economic situation in Poland might improve to such an extent that those workers who had left could return, Mr Walesa commented: "If I knew that I would be awarded a second Nobel Prize."
Speaking through an interpreter, Mr Walesa said he often wondered how his countrymen are doing in Ireland and whether they resented their homeland and him personally because of the present situation, or whether they understood that freedom and transformation had to occur at such a cost.
Mr Walesa was the guest of Rehab on his visit to Mayo.
He addressed a charity banquet attended by 400 people at the Breaffy House Hotel on Saturday night hosted by Joe Kennedy, chairman of Knock airport, and chairman of the organising committee.
Earlier he was taken to Hennigan's heritage farm at Killasser, Swinford, which, according to its owner Tom Hennigan, is the smallest surviving family farm left in Mayo.
During his trip, Mr Walesa planted a tree at Knock Shrine in memory of his countryman Pope John Paul II. The tree-planting took place in the presence of the Archbishop of Tuam Dr Michael Neary and Msgr Joseph Quinn.
This autumn, Rehab is to further strengthen Ireland's links with Poland when Rehab Enterprises, the group's commercial division, and Ireland's largest employer of people with disabilities, opens a new facility in Poland.
The plant in Lodz will provide a service to Dell computers and employ 100 people within its first year, 50 per cent of whom will be people with disability, according to Rehab's director of enterprises Michael Horgan.