Jim O'Callaghan

And what I've sought to do as Minister is to have a system which is firm but fair.

Well, it's not just Bertie Ahern.

Can I tell you, like three weeks ago, I got a report from the independent examiner of security legislation, Mr. Justice George Birmingham.

It's a report that...

got a lot of coverage of the Irish Independent and other newspapers.

And one of the issues he identified in his report was the threat from Islamic terrorism.

Now, I know the overwhelming majority of Muslim people in Ireland are law-abiding people,

and very, very welcomed into the country.

But I can't ignore the fact, I suppose, what's been said by the independent examiner.

It has been an issue in other countries.

I don't think we can just not talk about matters because they may be perceived as being, they could give sucker to people on the far right.

If we don't talk about issues like this, inevitably, the far right are going to have the whole territory to themselves.

I think sometimes there is a concern about raising issues to do with immigration in an Irish context, because obviously there are some people in the country who are vehemently opposed to immigration.

But I would have thought the majority of people have a sensible centre-ground approach which recognises the very valuable contribution of

that immigration has had to Ireland.

The reason people are coming to this country is it's because it's so economically successful.

If we want to have no immigration here, we should try and go back to what we were like before, say, in the 1950s or even before we got our independence.

So there's positives to immigration.

I think we need to be able to talk about it, though, and we shouldn't shy away from it.

And I think discussions should be based on data, really, as opposed to anecdotal.