Migrant workers are often exploited by unscrupulous employers. It does them, and Irish workers, nothing but harm, because the rate for job becomes the race to the bottom, and only the employer wins. The State makes the process of getting and renewing work permits very difficult, and leaves migrant worker’s vulnerable. Our Bill, presented today, wants to ensure migrant workers rights. As the old trade union slogan goes: AN INJURY TO ONE, IS AN INJURY TO ALL.

I welcome the move to define what ‘family’ means for refugees, and I welcome refugees and their families – just as the Irish needed a ‘welcome’ in our darkest days. And I condemn the actions of fascist sympathisers outside the gates of the Dáil as we speak, the ‘Irexit’ bullies who assembled to ‘do down’ these vulnerable people.