Government Decision Restricting Romanian and Bulgarian Workers

Full text of letter to The Irish Times, published 27 October 2006

Dear Madam,

The government’s decision to restrict workers from Romania and Bulgaria after their their joining the European Union next year is disappointing to say the least. First, there is a principle of free movement of workers in the EU treaties, one of the core values of the Union. Ireland should show generosity to these new EU entrants by allowing them access to our labour market.

Second, our economy requires a large number of new workers in the next few years to sustain growth. Why should these new countries not have the same opportunity to come and work here that the last tranche of new EU members had?

The widely predicted “swamping” of the country by new immigrants has failed to materialise. Far from being a burden on the state, these new workers are contributing to our continuing prosperity. I fail to see why for instance the Bulgarian property market is a subject of continuing interest to Irish investors, but our labour market is off-limits to their workers.

Economic studies have shown no evidence of displacement in the labour market. We have full employment in Ireland. We need new workers. We have a moral obligation and an economic need, and just because there is a get-out clause restricting Romanian and Bulgarian workers is no reason to avail of it. For a nation who has sent so many of its own abroad over the years, it seems that the attitude is, ‘When you get up the ladder, pull it up after you’. Of course there are questions of exploitation that need to be addressed, but they should not obscure either the principle of free movement or the need for new workers.

In justifying the government decision, Minister Martin stated that we need to deal with integrating those who are here already before allowing the Bulgarians and Romanians their full rights as EU citizens. While Minister Martin remained untroubled by this question when he was in the Departments of Health or Education, integration is the most important question around immigration. Integration should be seen in opposition to a policy of assimilation that seeks to eliminate all cultural differences, and to a multiculturalism that emphasises differences and encourages separateness. A policy of integration should seek to permit people of all backgrounds to fully participate in Irish social and economic life, based on the values of democracy, tolerance, pluralism, and sexual equality .

If a good result can come of a bad decision, then a coherent policy answering the questions as to how newcomers to Ireland should be treated with regard to education, the economy, education, health, housing, etc might be it. It’s time to have the debate.

Yours faithfully,

Cllr Aidan Culhane

Education, Integration and Immigration

Looking Back: Looking Forward: 1916–2006 Impact of the Easter Rising and First World War in Ireland, North and South

Cllr Aidan Culhane.

Confederation of European Councillors, Derry, 12 October 2006


1916. I think it’s clear that in Ireland the term evokes two very different responses. For most of us, it is the Rising of 1916. For some, it is the horrors of the Somme, and the First World War.

Looking back, it is clear that whatever your perspective is, both events were to prove cataclysmic for the fate of Ireland and Britain. The 1916 Rising in Dublin paved the way to independence for part of the island, while the Great War would change profoundly the nature of Britain.

For Britain, the war changed forever the certainties of the Victorian and Edwardian age. The rigidities of the class structure began to break down. The end of empire came into view. The role of women in society began to change, and the growth of the Labour movement continued. All would lead to a very different Britain than the one that so many men left to fight in Flanders.

Though many more Irishmen also left to fight for Britain in the First World War than stayed to fight against the British empire in the Easter rising of 1916, it is that insurrection far more than the War that came to define the state that was established after two bloody conflicts on the island itself – the war of independence and the Civil War. That state became defined by an ethos of 1916: nationalist Ireland not Imperial Britain; Catholic Ireland, not Protestant Britain.

For the UK, the end of the empire that the First World War heralded has meant that Britain has more than 50 years’ experience of mass immigration. Ireland’s experience has previously always been one of emigration, the Irish republic must for the first time consider the issue of significant immigration.

“Cherishing the children of the nation equally” is one of the most often quoted phrases of the Proclamation of 1916. Today, we need to look more closely at what this means, particularly in the context of a society which is dealing with large numbers of immigrants, be they refugees or economic migrants.

I believe that the state should set out a set of civic values that it regards as important, values that are not defined by a single religion, values that are applicable to all and supported by all. These are the values of democracy, rationalism, pluralism, human rights, and the rule of law. Through all its policies, but most particularly through education, the state should advance these values.

Many mistakes have been made in the past in the name of multiculturalism. The Irish state has, as I have said, largely defined itself negatively, that is by its separateness from Britain. It has never attempted to instil a set of civic values. Looking back at the ninety years since 1916, and looking forward to the country as it will appear at the centenary, it is time to radically re-assess how we define ourselves, and to assert our values in a positive way.

Before I go on, let me make clear that I support immigration. That is to say, I think that the state has a moral obligation, a legal duty under international law, and an economic need for immigrants to come. Let me also say that what I outline is not just a policy for the new Irish, it is just as important for our indigenous population.

A debate has bubbled under the surface in Ireland over the past year about the churches’ role in education. Archbishop Martin of Dublin early last year said that catholic schools must have a definable catholic ethos. My party leader responded by asking whether, especially for new communities, there must be four or five schools of different denominations where one or two would suffice. Fine Gael spokeswoman, Olwyn Enright took up the theme this summer in the context of multi-denominational education in the light of declining religious numbers. The UN committee on the Rights of the Child visited Ireland recently and commented on the lack of multi-denominational and non-denominational schools in Ireland, and recommended that the state “take fully into consideration the recommendations made by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD/C/IRL/CO/2, para. 18) which encourages the promotion of the establishment of non-denominational or multi-denominational schools”.

So where are we to go? It strikes me that the time is right for a radical overhaul of education in which civic values are made explicit. It is surely right for a modern republic to set out the values in which it believes. For indigenous Irish, as well as for newcomers, those values I outlined: democracy, rationalism, pluralism, and respect for the rule of law should be advocated vigorously by the state.

Where there are practices that are contrary to these values, the state must not shy away from them in the name of multiculturalism or a cultural relativism in which values that should be absolute are occluded by a “that’s their culture” type argument. Freedom of worship and freedom of speech are the sine qua non of any true democracy, but no freedom is completely untrammeled.

No republic should shy away from advancing its values if it truly regards them as worthy of the name. And making these explicit through a modern inclusive education system is surely the least we can do to cherish the children of the modern Ireland equally.