Kenny’s immigration speech moderate and balanced — unlike McDowell’s

INTRIGUED by the reaction to Enda Kenny’s recent speech on immigration, I took the trouble to go back and read the full text. Far from being a right-wing, nationalist diatribe, I found it to be a moderate and balanced call for development of coherent policies and measures to help immigrants.

These included measures to prevent exploitation of immigrant workers, more language teachers in schools to help immigrant children in addition to language lessons for adults. He also advocated the appointment of a minister with specific responsibility for coordinating the variety of services provided by different government departments and agencies. Mr Kenny dealt with the high proportion of non-nationals in our jails and involved in road fatalities, but not in any reactionary or inflammatory way.

He pointed out there are at least 50,000 Chinese language students in the country — you’ll see many of them working as shop assistants and contract cleaners. Mr Kenny’s assessment is that “rather than viewing these people as a source of cheap labour … we should engage closely with the large Chinese community to develop links with the fast-growing economies of China and the wider Asian markets”.