15th March 2004
The young Chinese man at our local service station was trying to deal with a drug addict when I arrived there at 11 o'clock in the morning a few weeks ago. The tall thin teenager was lurching around in the forecourt. He appeared to be unable to straighten his legs or his back and was falling around. He was in great danger of hurting himself if he fell or being hit by a car.
When I went in to pay for my petrol he staggered through the sliding door with me, although how his pin point pupils saw the slit through which we both got is hard to know.
The young man on the till had already decided to call for an ambulance and while the intruder was now in possession of a can of coke without paying he seemed quiescent.
The Chinese man was taking all this stoically, serving other customers and getting on with life. When I was paying him I asked "when you write home to your mother, do you tell her about this sort of performance? What does she think your life in Ireland is like?"
He grinned and said he doesn't tell her everything. I know him quite well, he's from north-east China and is on a post-graduate course here. He's very like all those non-nationals who run so much of our retail outlets nowadays, intelligent, here to learn but needing to earn money at the same time.
Writing in a recent edition of the Sunday Business Post David McWilliams said Irish women who work outside the home should be demonstrating against our immigration restrictions because non-national women were their only hope of getting domestic help. (He described it as getting people to take the "shit" jobs but I hate to see domestic work being so described, apart from ironing, that is.)
But David McWilliams is right, even if one is prepared to pay good wages, every known Government contribution, abide by all international labour laws it is very difficult to get home help.
Some non-nationals took pity on a friend of mine who has a chronic respiratory problem so that for years excitements like hoovering were not for her. She met a young Russian woman, again like my Chinese friend in the service station doing some post-graduate work and in need of money, who agreed to come and do some housework for my friend. But she, let us call her Olga, was a true friend.
When Olga left to go home to Russia she found Tatiana, newly arrived from Russia who agreed to work for my friend. When Tatiana left, Natasha arrived. When Natasha left, Sonia came and so on. Now there's a Russian mafia with a real conscience.
Why people are getting so excited about the hordes of new EU member state citizens who will be coming over the hill on May 1st I do not know. They will certainly not be coming to claim our dole. All the people from Latvia, Estonia, even Romania who won't get in for some years are coming here to work and they appear to be needed.
What really concerns me is that we could treat them in the same way as we treated non-national doctors for so many years, putting them in the least desirable service jobs and with little access to facilities to improve their lot if that is what they want to do. The Estonians are quite right to be concerned that they may see an exodus of their best qualified young people. With our government's fresh shilly-shallying on the Working-Time Directive would they be delighted to see a posse of Estonian doctors coming over the hill to take up the least desirable posts?
We have been forced to allow the spouses of immigrant workers work, too. This was to prevent the outflow of our newly acquired Filipino nursing colleagues. But what about their children? Are we ensuring that they can come here as families remembering our great concern in the Irish Constitution for the family. And what about their ancient parents if they want to come here? Will they even be allowed in on a visit?
I tried a few years ago to get a visitors visa for an elderly Russian woman, a retired doctor, to visit her daughter who is married to an Irish man and who works here. It was repeatedly refused, because she insisted her forty year old mildly mentally handicapped son should come with her. Someone must have told the folks back in Russia, where she is a heroine of the Patriotic War, has a special flat etc. - about our great benefits for such people and this lady is determined to get them for her son. I must tell all those parents who write to me about the problems they have getting facilities for their children that there must be gold out there somewhere, all they need to do is find it.
It is amazing how we have forgotten that just a few decades ago, when I qualified, the boat was the only place half of us knew of as a means to get work. Most of the people proposing to come here want to work, too. Let us welcome them.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
