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What a wonderful thing immigration has been for the food/service industry and for Ireland in general. Anybody watching the debate on immigration last night on RTE 1 will have heard the various problems experienced by immigrants, as well as the problems caused by a mass influx of people ready and willing to work, often open to exploitation by greedy employers. Applegreen can certainly be proud of the way they have dealt fairly and equally with their non-Irish employees as indeed they can be proud of all those employees, many now occupying key positions within the company.

There are of course a lot of little problems which arise from the interaction of different nationalities, the language problem for instance. Sometimes this leads to misunderstanding. Often Lithuanian directness is mistaken for rudeness, but more often than not it's pure misunderstanding. Then there is a comic element which could not be captured by the best scriptwriter. The boss tells a story (over and over again) about an employee who's first language was not English. The chap, it seems, had learned his English from a colourful member of the development team. "You watch out "he said earnestly to a colleague one day "the shit is really gonna hit the van!"

The boss remarked that learning about other cultures is very enriching and part of life's rich pageant (perhaps that's why bosses spend so much time on holidays abroad). Don't forget to tune in to that greatest of European culture festivals The Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday. The rest of Europe has long realised it's great craic, and will be coming together for Euro BBQ's and parties while we continue to treat it with a reverence it scarcely deserves sending the likes of the god-awful 'Every song is a cry for love' last year (or as Podge and Rodge more aptly titled it 'Every song is a cry for a puck in the mouth')

One thing's for sure, traveling and learning can only be good things. God knows the Irish have been doing both for long enough. If you feel like keeping up those two great old Irish traditions
maybe sometime in the future you can try Latvia, Ukraine, Lithuania orPoland.