Ireland + Britain - Stalling on Immigration

international | eu | news report Friday February 13, 2004 21:01 by Fergus

A week after the appearance of the front page headline - 'Ireland now only EU state Not to Restrict Access', yesterday, the Irish Times published a smaller less obvious story.

Other stories will be even harder to find...

A week after the appearance of the front page headline - 'Ireland now only EU state Not to Restrict Access', yesterday, the Irish Times published a smaller less obvious story.

Last Thursday (5th Feb.) the paper stated that "Britain thus becomes the 14th of the 15 existing member states to exercise their right under the accession treaties to restrict immigration..."

However in yesterdays smaller less obvious article (12th Feb.) it quoted Britain's PM Tony Blair as saying -
"There is free movement of people after May 1st.
"Free movement of workers, however, was a concession we are prepared to grant but not in circumstances where it can be abused.
We are therefore LOOKING at the benefits system and any other measures necessary to ensure it is not abused."

A report of the issue in yesterdays Guardian newspaper pointed out that -
'The result of a belated policy review, initially expected yesterday, has been DELAYED until next week at the earliest.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,1146736,00.html


Now, despite its (5th Feb.) suspect headline allegations, last weeks Irish Times article also included an admission by an Irish government spokesman that -
"IF there were strong indications that the Irish welfare system would become overburdened, then it MAY BE necessary to put in place restrictions."


Ireland and Britain's position are the same.
IE - they are both stalling on the immigration issue.
In particular on IF/WHEN they are going to introduce restrictions on Social Welfare.


An Extract from the Experts

Talking on an RTE Radio 1 feature on May 1st enlargement , "one of Ireland's leading economists" made claims that -

"We are exposed to possibilities that could be very serious for the govt. and society, thats absolutely true.

The difficulty is this - that we're in this community , there is a set of rules, which means that we must abide by them, we have a liberal social welfare regime, we are also constitutionally bound in terms of immigration by the Good Friday Agreement and we now find ourselves with people coming in, possibly looking for social welfare, and we will have a choice between either accommodating them or changing the rules for social welfare for EVERYBODY.
Now there will be some people and I will be one of those saying maybe we should contemplate that.
But if we don't contemplate that then we simply have to bite this bullet"

>So are you saying if there's a wave of immigration into the State on May 1st and social welfare rules have to be changed, they'll be changed for everybody ?

"They'll have to be, you can't discriminate".

>Everybody ? You can't discriminate ?

"You can't discriminate, no. How are you going to discriminate ?"

>So the threat to social welfare is even stronger then ?

"Something will have to give. There's no doubt about that."

Tom McGurk discusses the possible outcomes of EU enlargement with UCD economist, Moore McDowell on The Sunday Show (8th Feb.)

The above comments can be found (?) at around 1 hour 8 minutes into the programme.
Scroll down and click on 'The Sunday Show'.
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/infocenter/audio_weekend.html


Moore McDowell is a UCD economist, a columnist with the Irish Independent and is often a guest panelist on RTE Radio/television, - by the way he is also the brother of Attorney General, Michael McDowell.


Where's This Coming From ?

Immigration policy can't be looked at in isolation.
Europe is changing, government + business want to push through reforms in the relationship between "the welfare state" and "the labour market".

http://www.upmf-grenoble.fr/irepd/regulation/Forum/Forum_2003/Forumpdf/RR_RAVEAUD.pdf


Bigger EU Questions

Are Ireland and Britain both stalling on a decision because they want to wait until after May 1st enlargement ?
It would then mean that the introduction of reforms/cuts to Social Welfare would effect EVERYBODY ?
That way they can get to blame not EU reforms but the "welfare tourists" and "scroungers".


And what decent member of society wants to defend the unemployed, "welfare tourists" and "scroungers" ?


Let them drown ?


Not without a struggle.