More funds urged for Irish emigrants

JUST a fraction of the money needed to help elderly Irish emigrants in the US and Britain will be provided by the Government this year, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

Despite the fact that a Government task force recommended that €18 million be allocated to the cause of emigrants abroad, officials told the Foreign Affair Committee that this year's allocation was just over €4m.

This failure of the Government to allocate further funding was criticised by all Committee members, with chairman Michael Woods demanding an increase in funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Labour's Emmet Stagg who first raised the issue in a private members motion in January said it was shameful that the Government was not providing for the 800,000 Irish citizens who emigrated between 1949 and 1989.

"We sent them out with cardboard suitcases and they are being buried every day now in cardboard coffins as paupers," he said.

Fine Gael's Michael Noonan said there was a total lack of commitment from the Government to those who had emigrated.

He added that not all of those who went to Britain were economic migrants, claiming that gay people, single mothers and others had been driven away because of intolerance.

In a briefing note presented to the Committee, Department official John Neary said a special group in the Department was meeting on a fortnightly basis to monitor progress in implementing the recommendations of the task force's report.