Post campaign for free diaspora pensioners’ travel

A NEW Labour Party campaign aims to have 30,000 postcards land on the Government’s door step, urging free travel for Irish pensioners abroad.

The campaign, launched yesterday in Dublin, is primarily aimed at the hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens living in Britain, many of whom are elderly and of scarce means.

Under the Labour plan all Irish citizen pensioners who travelled to Ireland would have the same free travel rights as those resident here.

Launching the drive, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said those who were forced to emigrate in previous decades had sent home £3.5 billion between 1939 and 1969 to help sustain families and communities at a time of dire poverty.

“Those who have grown up in the relative prosperity of recent decades may not be aware that hundreds of thousands of Irish people were forced to emigrate to Britain through economic and cultural circumstances to earn a living through manual work, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s,” he said.

Mr Rabbitte said the plan, which would not unduly cost the Exchequer, would be a “real expression of the value of Irish emigrants”.

“As we approach St Patrick’s Day some 20 ministers and ministers of state were preparing to fly off to the four corners of the earth and I have no doubt that over the St Patrick’s Day period, they will pose for endless photographs, pay glowing tributes to Irish emigrants and emphasise just how much they value these members of the Irish family,” he said.

Free travel for returning pensioners was one of the key recommendations of the Government’s 2001 Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants.

However, the recommendation, along with others such as a dedicated agency for the Irish abroad, have never been set in train.

Mr Rabbitte pointed out that the Irish community in Britain had been urging free travel for returning pensioners for years.

“The overall cost to the Irish Exchequer would be modest but it would be an appropriate gesture of gratitude on behalf of this generation,” he said.

The Labour Party has now had 30,000 postcards printed, which people are being asked to return so the party can deliver them to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Newspapers serving the Irish community in Britain have also agreed to help with the distribution of the cards, most of which should be returned during the St Patrick’s Day recess.