A sculpture on migrant workers and their exploitation reflected an issue due to become much greater in the years ahead in Irish society, Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins said yesterday.
Mr Higgins spoke on the issue in front of the 5.5m (18ft) sculpture by Kilkenny artist Nevan Lahart at the Royal Hibernian Gallery, Dublin. The work forms part of an exhibition called Eurojet Futures: An Anthology.
Mr Higgins, who admitted he was more at home at a protest or on a picket line than in an art gallery, said he was delighted Mr Lahart and the gallery had chosen the issue of how migrant workers were treated in society.
"I think it's very good that this artistic feature is reflecting what is now, in my view, one of the foremost problems that presents itself socially in our society. I think that the treatment of migrant workers in the Republic of Ireland is due to become a much greater issue in the years ahead."
There was a calculated and quite cynical strategy to use migrant workers. Now, not just Turkish but eastern European workers of the EU's new states were being used as a battering ram against trade union rates of pay and conditions that had been won by workers' hard struggle over many decades, Mr Higgins said.
It was never an accident that there were more and more examples of gross exploitation of migrant workers because it was a calculated strategy of the current Government.
It reflected the policy of many EU governments as part of the neo-liberal economic agenda, he added.
The key solution was in the hands of the organised labour movement. "I have been calling on the trade union movement to now lead a huge campaign so that every migrant worker is reached in our society and is brought in to the movement so that they are united with fellow workers in this country," he said.