Closing the door to European citizens who have the right to come here to work would be a failure of nerve and political leadership, writes Mary Harney
A debate has started on controlling EU citizens coming to work in Ireland by work permits or some other government intervention.
There are powerful undercurrents swirling around this debate. It asks some real and fundamental questions about our society.
I would like this debate to be about what sort of Ireland we want now and for the future. I ask, where is the open, confident, outward-looking Ireland for which we have worked so hard over 20 years, and that has worked so well for us? Where is the vision of a tolerant, progressive, welcoming country?
We are a people who have reaped tremendous benefits from working with others, both when we were in their countries and also now when they are in ours. It is in our lifeblood as Irish people for centuries to be outward, open, European and transatlantic in our outlook.
Before globalisation was invented we were already intercontinental.
Whatever way you look at it - cultural, political, social, economic, religious - the dominant tradition of Irish people is outward, learning, integrating and exchanging with others. Whatever the cause of our being abroad - political upheaval in the 17th century, famine in the 19th, both economic mismanagement and economic success in the 20th - our well-being here has been intimately bound up with how we fare abroad with others.
In this context, a period of protectionism in the 20th century was our most unsuccessful time. Our new openness, our international travel and trade, our integration in Europe and the world, is a return to our best.
We are an island people, but not insular.
This was the context in which the Government decided in 2003 that we should allow people in 10 new member states their full rights to work here, from the day of their joining on May 1st, 2004, just as we enjoy in their countries.
In making its decision, the Government was very conscious that, only a year earlier, the Irish people had decided to approve the Nice treaty. The treaty paved the way for accession of the new member states.
In the Nice debates, we asked and answered important questions about where we saw ourselves and others in Europe. Opinion polls showed we were persuaded that it was morally right to allow people formerly oppressed under communism the same chance we had for free, economic and social development in the EU. We saw our future and their future as bound up together. Good for Ireland and good for Europe.
The fear of immigration was raised by those urging a No vote. There was also a renewed call to hostility to the European Union as a capitalist, big business scheme to undermine our public services and employment standards. We rejected those fears and spectres then, and opted for confidence.
We continue, rightly, to debate the nature and policies of the European Union. We have both a social Europe and an open-market Europe.
I find it baffling, however, that some of those who place the emphasis on a social Europe should now contemplate restricting the existing rights of European citizens to take up employment in Ireland.
The EU is a union of citizens, not natives. These are the shared rights of EU citizens - Irish, Poles, Spanish, Latvians and Lithuanians.
The reasonable and fair position is to allow people their rights, not to restrict them. We had no compelling reason to deny people their rights in 2004. We had, and still have, virtually full employment. Last year the number of people employed grew by 89,000. So it makes economic, as well as moral, sense for Ireland to maintain full EU rights for all EU citizens.
We have national labour laws and institutions to protect and vindicate employment conditions. I favour their continued development and modernisation to deal with new realities and challenges.
Having introduced the minimum wage, I won't countenance it being abused or violated.
Having supported three social partnership agreements in government, I urge the respectful resolution of disputes and disagreements, in a voluntarist spirit, using our experienced industrial-relations institutions.
Having advocated upskilling and high value, high-wage jobs, I have no interest whatsoever in downgrading our skills, wages or employment standards.
I welcome unions hiring organisers from Poland and other countries to help new workers here understand and defend their employment rights. This is an appropriate response.
In contrast, it would be appalling now to take away their full EU employment rights after just two years. Closing the door just after we have opened it would be begrudging and irrational, not least since we would have to open it again only a few years later.
Neither Fortress Europe nor Fortress Ireland is right. To contemplate closing the door now with an attitude of "what we have we hold" is the old siege mentality. It belies a failure of nerve, confidence and political leadership that we can sustain high employment standards with economic prosperity. Economic prosperity is the best guarantor of high employment standards. High employment standards are no use to someone without employment.
What signal would closing the door send? What would it achieve? What would it say about us and our vision for continued prosperity in an open, outward and confident Ireland?
It would be the abandonment of our best traditions and of the well-spring of our economic and social renaissance.
The day Ireland closed up would be the day the music died.