Support for returning emigrants
The Taoiseach cited funding, community development officers and local-authority initiatives to support returning emigrants; opposition members said many could not afford to stay and councils could not house them.
I was making the point that, in recent years, €18 million has been given to DION and that additional money was given to it in the previous budget.
Comment on this
In addition to that, we are putting development officers into the communities to work in the areas and assist in them. Also, many of our old and not-so-old emigrants have returned home and many of our local authorities are now planning initiatives to house returned Irish emigrants. We have seen very good examples of that in the west or Ireland, where many such people who were living in poor accommodation in the United Kingdom are now returning to top quality accommodation back home. These are very welcome developments, never mind what we are doing in the areas of health and so on.
