Kelly Speaks Out on Undocumented

Irish Labor Party Senator Alan Kelly is in New York this week to participate in a number of business meetings and to meet with Irish undocumented.

Kelly, 33, from Tipperary, was elected to the Seanad (Senate) in Ireland last year and has been very outspoken on the issue of the estimated 50,000 Irish undocumented currently living in the U.S. within his party and during Seanad sessions in Ireland.

"I have raised the issue a number of times in the Seanad last year and I will continue to do so," said Kelly during an interview with the Irish Voice in New York on Tuesday.

Kelly, whose political career began in 1992 when he worked on the Tipperary North General Election campaign for the Labor Party, said he was disgruntled at former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern's comments suggesting that Irish American reformers were seeking "amnesty" for the undocumented, and nothing could be done from an Irish perspective weeks before his resignation.

"I feel that some of the comments by the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern last year were unfair and his timing was diabolical," said Kelly, who went on to say he asked Ahern to withdraw the statements but he never did.

Kelly said he is aware that the Irish government is "working on series of proposals" to help solve the issue of the undocumented living in the U.S., but he feels "it's very important to manage expectations because on a number of occasions people's expectations were heightened and then they were let down again."

Kelly, whose New York-based brother Declan Kelly, CEO of Financial Dynamics, is to be honored at the American Irish Historical Society's annual gala this Thursday, admits that some of his neighbors and friends from Tipperary are currently residing in the U.S. without legal documentation.

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Nster.com