Long-term residents currently living in limbo could help Bermuda economically if they were given status says campaigner Robert Pires.

He said instead of sending money back they would buy homes and invest cash here which would help the island.

He quoted an editorial in Caymans online news source `Caymennetnews' which said that giving residency to 1,000 work permit holders there would create a billion dollars in spending.

Mr. Pires said: "The objective is to encourage them to buy homes and reinvest in the island rather than shipping the money out.

"Many Bermudians decry foreigners for sending money out of the Island, but if they have no citizenship rights and don't know how long they can remain, why would they keep their money here?'' Mr. Pires, spokesman for the Coalition on Long-Term Residents, was only advocating status for those who had spent 20 years in Bermuda by the cut-off date of July 31, 1989 when the status moratorium was imposed.

"Our position has never been to have an open-door policy but merely to give rights to parents and grandparents of Bermudian children.

"Some of these people have been here contributing to this Island for 20, 30 and 40 years.'' And he attacked work restrictions on children of expatriates which stopped them from saving for their education.

Mr. Pires called for unconditional summer and vacation employment rights for children of long-term residents, starting at the age of 14, if they would be eligible for status when they were 18.

"There are kids who are entitled to Bermudian citizenship when they are 18 but they can't get summer jobs.

"They can't go back to the Azores because they weren't born there and maybe don't speak the language well enough, but they can't get summer jobs when that's the time when we need most labour.

"Instead, we bring in single men and women who take up one- bedroom apartments all over the place when we have a housing shortage.''