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>> RTE's David DavinPower extracted the best soundbite at last week's joint Fine Gael-Labour conference on Irish emigrants. The RTE political correspondent asked about the apparent hypocrisy in lobbying for Irish illegals in the United States while showing less concern for immigrants who have arrived on our shores. Enda Kenny didn't look like a man with an answer, but his aspiring tanaiste willingly stepped into the breach. "There's always a healthy hypocrisy in politics when it comes to protecting one's own interests, " Rabbitte declared.
The Labour leader was also quick off the mark when news broke about the exploitation of foreign workers at the ESB's Moneypoint Plant.
Rabbitte has been working hard to overcome the racist undertones to his remarks about 40 million Poles coming here to work and his musings on the introduction of work permits for EU citizens.
Now, however, it seems Rabbitte's party has moved towards a strongly liberal attitude on immigrant workers.
Labour Youth last week called for an open-borders approach to people from Bulgaria and Romania coming here to work when those two countries join the EU in 2007, something that even the current government has yet to decide upon.
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YOU ARE HERE: 19 March 2007 / tribune.ie / 2006 / 03 / 19
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