The ship of State can take a long time to change direction when inherited policies have run their course and new ones are required. This has rarely been so true as it is with the current Government's highly confused immigration policy. Rapid and sustained economic growth having exhausted the labour pool of unemployed, women and returning emigrants, attention is now turning to the idea that workers should be systematically recruited in central and eastern Europe to fill existing vacancies. And this at a time when thousands of people from there and elsewhere are arriving on our shores looking for asylum and work, but are refused permission to stay.
Mr Tom Kitt, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, floated the proposal to recruit 10,000 people from central and eastern Europe at a meeting in Brussels last week, suggesting that Forfas could be given responsibility for it. He advocated a "positive and flexible" approach rather than the reactive policy followed so far. There is merit in his proposal. It comes after a year in which the penny has slowly dropped that continuing prosperity could be jeopardised by labour shortages - a piece of realism that has grown to match public outrage over the disgraceful conditions facing asylum seekers and economic migrants. Ireland's growing prosperity has attracted these people here. It is high time public policy was turned around to take proper account of that fact. The strong statement condemning their treatment by the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, is a welcome indication that this is politically unacceptable.
Mr Tony Blair has championed the idea of "joined up government" in Britain so as to render public policy more coherent, effective and transparent. Ms O'Donnell quite correctly says the chaos surrounding the treatment of asylum seekers "requires specific co-ordinated action by positively focussed civil servants and ministers", which to date has not happened. There is something irrational in the coexistence of labour shortages with the expulsion of illegal immigrants - and with the fact that only a miserable 13 jobs have been offered to them since the regulations were ostensibly liberalised last summer.
As we have seen in the belated attempts to deal with the accommodation of asylum seekers, at least five departments are involved in a committee to cater for their welfare. That needs to be put right urgently. Radical questions need to be asked about whether the Department of Justice is the appropriate body to take the lead on the matter, given its highly restrictive approach. If Mr Kitt's and Ms O'Donnell's ideas are to take off the cabinet will need to give a lead on the question of opening up the Irish labour market, based on a thorough assessment of labour shortages and needs.
It must be made clear that immigrant workers will be welcomed here and that a determined effort will be made to resolve the chaotic uncertainties and contradictions animating existing policies. It makes good sense to seek out recruits in central and eastern Europe, given the pool of skilled personnel to be found there and the fact that these states are preparing to join the European Union. To have such people working in Ireland would build up valuable human contacts with these societies. But it would not in itself resolve the appalling confusion surrounding existing immigration and asylum policy in Ireland. That needs an overall policy approach.