Speaking in the Dáil in November 1995, the then Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Justice, Deputy O'Donoghue, said that the status of refugees was an issue which should strike a chord with every man, woman and child here who has any grasp of Irish history, as Irish history books were littered with the names and deeds of those driven from our country by fear of prosecution.
The same Deputy is now the Minister who must take primary responsibility for a policy on dealing with asylum seekers which has accurately been described by the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy O'Donnell, as a doom-laden, ad hoc policy, as chaos and a shambles.
The Irish are a predominantly humane and tolerant people and the great majority have been shocked, not just by the appalling scenes we witnessed at the Refugee Applications Centre in Mount Street in the past two weeks, but also at the increasingly harsh and intolerant tones that have come to characterise public pronouncements on this issue by senior Government Ministers. No matter what a person's economic status, nationality, skin colour or ethnic background is, that person is entitled to be treated by the institutions of this State with courtesy, respect and dignity. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has failed to ensure that asylum seekers in this State are treated in an acceptable manner.
I do not blame the staff at the Refugee Applications Centre, who have been working in intolerable conditions for some time. In many respects, the staff's decision to take action finally forced the Minister to move to acquire additional accommodation as well as extra space and staff.
However, the Minister must take responsibility for allowing last week's situation to develop. It besmirched the good name of this country. He has been in office since July 1997 and it is time he stopped blaming the previous Administration and accepted that he has failed utterly to do what is needed after two and a half years in office, promising he would deal with delays in processing asylum applications. We have had the appalling spectacle of men, women and children queuing from as early as 5 a.m. They queue for hours with nowhere to sit, no shelter from the weather and without even the most basic toilet facilities. They queue for hours only to be turned away and told no service is to be available at the office. If those scenes were not bad enough, the atmosphere has been further inflamed by a series of harsh and intolerant pronouncements by Government Ministers. In a phrase that would be music to the minority of racists in the country, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform talked on RTE of the country being swamped by asylum seekers. Last night the Minister for Finance suggested the problem had been solved in June and July and blamed the Government decision to allow employers to seek permits to employ some asylum seekers for acting as a pull to bring more asylum seekers into the country.
Since the Government decision in July, just 15 work permits have been issued for the thousands of asylum seekers here. The Government is clearly divided on the issue. As the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, acknowledged, Government policy is a shambles, but far from trying to deal with the problem identified by her, senior Fianna Fáil Ministers have, on television, poured scorn on her. Surprisingly – or perhaps not – the Tánaiste has failed to come to the defence of her colleague and has implicitly taken the side of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Immigration into this country from outside the EU is a fact of life with which we will have to live. We have two choices – we can see it, as the Minister does, as a problem to be dealt with through restrictions, harsh measures, legal sanctions and deportations or as a potentially positive development which provides us with an opportunity to promote diversity in Irish society and to meet the labour shortages already identified. The most immediate priority should be to put in place facilities that will ensure that all applicants are dealt with promptly and efficiently. That is the demand of the people of Ireland to which the Minister and the Government must respond without further delay.