Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 16 Feb 2023

Vol. 1033 No. 5

Co-ordination of International Protection Services: Statements

The Taoiseach

In the darkest days of our country's history, faced with famine, violence and the loss of our independence and freedom, we clung to a single hope. We endured, fought for, dreamed of and died for the promise of a better future, a better life for our children and for ourselves. In the same period, we fled in our millions to other parts of the world. Some were lucky and were able to breathe freely and create new lives for themselves. Others were discriminated against, despised, abused and rejected. As a country and a people, we know what it is like to be displaced and to displace others. We know what it is like to be vulnerable and to feel lost and adrift.

Today, many people are feeling afraid. Some are afraid of being displaced. They feel they are losing out and even that their identity is under threat. Others who are new to our shores are also afraid. They are mourning all they have lost and are fearful about what is still to come, that they are not welcome or, if they are, that the welcome might end.

Starting with us, the politicians, and spreading out to every community, I believe we all need to do better. We need to respond better to the multitude of fears, different concerns and competing ideas of what our country should and can be. It is easy to offer a céad míle fáilte when things are going well or visitors are paying their own way. It is much more difficult when it impacts on our lives in a direct and meaningful way. In our hearts we are a welcoming people but hearts can be hardened by the cold reality of the cost of those thousand welcomes. Resources will always be limited. Sometimes the resource is money, other times it is manpower and sometimes it is material or space. However, instead of pointing the finger or apportioning blame, we must provide solutions, honesty and reassurance.

As Taoiseach, I believe we should welcome and protect those who come to these shores legitimately. That is our way of honouring our national story and paying tribute to the many thousands of people here and abroad who never found a better life, the many who were silenced forever because of the oppression imposed on them by a few.

Migration is a good thing for our country but it must be properly managed and managed as best we can. The public expects this and is right to do so. We have a moral and legal responsibility to those fleeing war and persecution. That means we must be fair and open with everyone who needs our protection. It also means having legal pathways to facilitate economic migration because we need that too. It means being firm with those who come here with a false story or under false pretences. Criminal gangs should never decide who enters our country. That is for us to decide, not human traffickers. We need to ensure, therefore, that our system is efficient and fairly operated and that decisions are made quickly so that those entitled to international protection are granted an immigration status and can rebuild their lives here. The money and staff allocated in budget 2023, approximately €18 million, will help to make this a reality.

There has been a major increase in applications for international protection in the European Union. Last week, at the special meeting of the European Council in Brussels, we agreed to step up action to strengthen the European Union's external borders and prevent people-smuggling, especially loss of life, and also to step up returns to countries of origin when applications for protection are refused. Countries should be willing to take their citizens back as we do.

Across the country, communities have warmly welcomed people fleeing from war and persecution with a generous spirit. We are showing empathy and compassion as a people in standing up for what is right. In doing so, we know capacity is not unlimited but, with time, it can be expanded. We are demonstrating through our actions and history that our experiences have shaped us as a nation and moulded our values.

In the year since Russia's brutal invasion, Ukraine has seen immense suffering and destruction and a wide-scale displacement of its people.

Last week, I joined other EU Heads of Government to reaffirm our steadfast support for Ukraine for as long as it takes. As part of the EU's response, the temporary protection system was triggered for the first time on 4 March 2022. This has provided quick and effective assistance to those fleeing the war. Already, more than 73,000 people from Ukraine have arrived in Ireland as beneficiaries of temporary protection.

Our response as a State has been unprecedented in history. Faced with a massive humanitarian crisis, we have accommodated 57,000 people in almost 700 locations. We have enrolled almost 15,000 Ukrainian pupils in our schools and issued 55,000 medical cards. More than 13,000 beneficiaries of temporary protection have found employment here and are helping our economy to grow and prosper. We have done more than any other country in western Europe to accommodate Ukrainian refugees and we are proud to have done so. We will turn nobody away.

We are doing everything we can to co-ordinate our humanitarian efforts. Every month, I chair meetings of the Cabinet committee on the humanitarian response to Ukraine to oversee this work. Community forums established by local authorities are working effectively throughout the country managing the response at local level. We are also developing a more agile response to provide accommodation beyond the use of hotels and tourist accommodation. We are accelerating the refurbishment of buildings, continuing the unoccupied homes campaign and providing pledged accommodation and rapid-build homes on suitable sites.

This crisis began as a humanitarian emergency and it remains such but we are now developing a more long-term and sustainable response, recognising this war may go on for a very long time. We want services and assistance to be consistent and equitable, in line with our international obligations. As Taoiseach, I particularly want to pay tribute to all of those who have opened their communities and their own homes to people arriving from abroad. It has been a great national effort at a time when things are not easy for everyone, particularly with the cost of living rising. I think when we look back at this time our response will look better than it does today. Decency and humanity are prevailing over anger and fear, at least in the main.

Increasing numbers of people are applying for international protection from outside of Europe, with more than 15,000 since the start of 2022. We all know that the war in Ukraine and the significant numbers of people seeking international protection are making the pressure on accommodation even more intense. Today almost 78,000 people, men, women and children, are living in State-sourced accommodation. This is more than ten times the number two years ago. It is equivalent to the population of Galway city. Unfortunately, in recent weeks the Government has been unable to accommodate all newly arrived international protection applicants. Families with children are prioritised, as are vulnerable individuals, but some people have been left without shelter. We must find additional supply to rectify this. This work is ongoing, intense and cross-government and we will have meetings at ministerial level on it today.

The international crisis started suddenly and the speed of events has meant that we have not always been able to prepare the groundwork and talk to communities to allay the concerns they might have. We need to get this right. Some communities have genuine concerns about pressures on facilities and services and they should not be dismissed. We need to reassure them that we are going to invest in community infrastructure and facilities to recognise the contribution made by communities across the country. To this end, we now have a €50 million community recognition fund for facilities and services that will be used for the good of everyone in the community and a further €10 million is being made available for integration.

Unfortunately, in recent weeks we have seen very aggressive campaigns directed against newcomers that are designed to create divisions in our society. Unscrupulous individuals and groups are preying on legitimate concerns and weaponising them to inspire fear and hatred. Others see it as a political opportunity to promote their party or even their ideology. This should not be. We should all stand together against fear, hate and conspiracy theories. We should do so on a non-partisan and non-ideological basis, a nation standing together against racism. We have a long tradition of aiding other nations in times of trouble and this will continue no matter what. It will be hard and we will face many difficulties but as a country and as a people we will do what is right, just and fair. We will be true to our history because we share this world too.

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Deputy Micheál Martin)

Offering protection to those seeking it when fleeing war or persecution lies at the very core of the values of every free democracy. It is an expression of humanity and solidarity. It is a European value founded on a deep understanding of migration in our history and the terrible things that happened when borders were so tightly sealed that previously unimaginable tragedies and atrocities occurred. The fact is that Europe and Ireland are, at this very moment, experiencing enormous pressures, overwhelmingly due to people fleeing war and persecution on our borders.

In any honest discussion about people seeking protection we must start by acknowledging the crimes of those who have caused the migration in the first place. It is warmongers such as Putin and Assad whose actions have caused millions to seek safety in faraway countries. It is they who bear responsibility for the pressures which so many countries are facing at this very moment. Let no one deny that the pressures are very real. The scale and speed of the new arrivals have challenged the ability to respond, and have gone well beyond anything that countries planned for. The need for a new comprehensive approach at European Union level to the issues of migration and asylum is clear. Progress remains slow, however, as member states continue to struggle with such difficult issues as relocation, secondary movements and reform of the core regulations.

Currently under way in Europe is the largest land war in three quarters of a century. Not only has a European state been invaded but the invader has also deliberately sought to target civilian infrastructure and life. These are war crimes by any definition and this is what lies at the heart of why tens of thousands have travelled here seeking refuge over the past year. This is why the entire system of providing for those seeking to apply for international protection has been placed under a strain, which is undeniable. There are up to 75,000 people here who have fled Putin's war crimes. This has undeniably led to very serious strain but let us be very clear that our national response has overwhelmingly been true to our best values. More than 6,000 homes are welcoming these war refugees. Every part of Government and local government has contributed with truly exceptional measures. Schools in every area of the country have opened their arms widely to new pupils and have shown a deep commitment to respect and solidarity.

This is an international challenge and Ireland has consistently argued that a comprehensive, holistic European Union approach has to be devised in order for Europe to effectively address the wider migration situation. We recognise that solidarity and responsibility are essential as pillars of any new and comprehensive system. Ireland is making a positive contribution wherever we can and we are, as a Government, working intensively on ongoing co-operation.

In my areas of responsibility I want to particularly acknowledge the work of Óglaigh na hÉireann in terms of saving lives in the Mediterranean and in airlift operations. On the domestic front, the Department of Defence is also engaging on a request for accommodation and supports across Government in response to migration pressures. Following a request from the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, we made lands at Gormanston military installation in County Meath available for emergency accommodation and for use as a reception centre for Ukrainian nationals from July to October 2022. The use of Ballymullen Barracks in Tralee has allowed Kerry County Council to accommodate Ukrainian nationals. It has capacity for up to 60 people. The military installation at Kilbride Army Camp in County Wicklow is being made available for emergency short-term accommodation. It had an initial maximum capacity for 75 people and this has increased to 130 people in recent weeks.

The camp is currently being used to accommodate international protection applicants in co-ordination with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. The Defence Forces have also provided valuable practical support such as tentage and engineering assistance at a site in Knockalisheen, County Clare. The tentage erected onsite provides additional accommodation for up to 104 applicants at an existing direct provision centre. This site is a Department of Defence landholding which was already in use as a direct provision centre. The Defence Forces are also providing logistical assistance to other agencies in a range of areas. In addition, Civil Defence units across the country continue to provide supports at local authority level for Ukrainians seeking protection in Ireland. This includes assistance at temporary rest centres and provision of transport for school registration and medical appointments. In the context of today’s meeting, I will be working with the Defence Forces to see what more we can to do to be of continuing logistical support to all of the other State agencies.

We are playing our part at home and abroad in alleviating the pressures right now but we must not lose sight of the bigger picture. We can only achieve real progress if we work with our international partners to tackle the root causes of migration, from conflict and climate change to poverty and inequality. This will require even stronger partnerships underpinned by development assistance. Our assistance includes substantial support for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR. Ireland is a permanent member of the UNHCR’s executive committee and is a member of its major donors' group. We welcome the current emphasis on external aspects of migration, including the effort to establish co-operation and mutually beneficial partnerships with countries of origin and transit. At the same time, the EU’s relationships with countries of origin or transit should not be defined solely in terms of migration.

In our national response to this issue, we will continue to emphasise the requirement for all international humanitarian and legal obligations to be observed. The right to claim asylum is a fundamental principle of international law and our human rights systems. It cannot be diluted, nor can states seek a derogation from their obligations. Equally, the scale of the war-caused pressures of this moment reinforce the need for the system to deal quickly with applications so we have the ability to help those who are fleeing war and persecution.

When we look at some recent public demonstrations, I think we all need to make sure that we do nothing to inflame delicate situations. The populist approach of always presenting everything as being about the elite or the Government being responsible never brings anything positive and can be dangerous at moments when some seek to exploit public concerns. Angry intimidation of people we disagree with has no place in a free democracy such as ours. The Irish people have overwhelmingly shown during the past year and throughout recent years their commitment to humanitarian values. This has not changed and I believe it will not change. We will do everything we possibly can to build co-ordination and to respond to this unique moment in modern history.

Is cuid lárnach agus luachmhar dár n-oidhreacht sa tír seo cairdeas agus tacaíocht a thabhairt dár gcomharsana béal dorais agus, níos tábhachtaí ná sin, do strainséirí. Bhuail mé le déanaí le múinteoirí agus scoileanna éagsúla ar fud na tíre agus bhí sé dochreidte an méid atá déanta acu chun oiliúint a thabhairt do leanaí ón Úcráin agus ó áiteanna eile thar lear a fheiceáil. Gabhaim buíochas ó chroí leo.

Minister for Transport (Deputy Eamon Ryan)

It is difficult when in the middle of a crisis or a very difficult situation not to have a sense of being overwhelmed by it, or not to feel it will never end or that it is hard to see how it will be resolved. We are in that at the moment. As the Tánaiste said, the change that is happening across Europe because of the war and also in the wider world is unprecedented, with the movement of people to and from Europe in ways that are very hard to manage. As a people, more than any other, we know that movement has always happened. This is not the first time in the world that people have arrived on a shore and not felt welcome or where there was a sense of "We are full up". "No Irish need apply" was used in living memory. We know what it is like to be the subject of abuse, jokes, derision, threats and violence. We know that; it is not something new. However, the scale of what has happened in the last year is unprecedented in our lifetime.

The simple figures mentioned by both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste bear repeating. At the beginning of 2022, the State was managing, accommodating, welcoming and looking after some 8,000 people who had come here seeking refuge. Now, barely a year later, there are 78,000 people for whom we have to do that. That is an unprecedented tenfold increase in one year. We have 58,000 Ukrainian people who are in flight from the most savage of wars, as we all understand, and we are accommodating some 20,000 people seeking international protection.

For Ireland, international law and the rights under international law are important. We are a small country. We stand by the UN Declaration of Human Rights - I saw it only this morning as it is framed in the corridor on the first floor of Government Buildings – and our UN flag flies at the entrance to Government Buildings. I think all parties in this House share a common understanding that our country, a small country which has always stood by the United Nations and the League of Nations, knows that the rights that come with such international order have to be protected.

This is a crisis that is not going to be immediately resolved. We know there are still some 1,200 people a week coming into our country, the majority, or about 1,000, fleeing Ukraine and about 200 coming for international protection. I understand from the Taoiseach’s attendance at the European Council’s special meeting last Thursday that the message was that this is unlikely to change in the immediate future. This war is not likely to end soon and it is more likely to go to a more brutal level of intensity in the coming months.

We are not alone in this. Every single European country, some perhaps to a lesser extent, has opened its doors and we will have to keep those doors open. We have done a remarkable job. I agree with the Taoiseach that, in time, we will look back at our ability to respond. Some 720 contracts have been signed with accommodation providers to provide some 43,000 beds in hotels, hostels and self-catering accommodation, and over 6,500 Irish homes have been offered to people coming here – 6,530 to be precise. As of 4 February, 1,198 had been accommodated under the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage's Offer a Home scheme. We should recognise, salute, celebrate and thank all those people in hotels, homes and community centres the length and breadth of this country.

Is my speaking time limited?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister is due to finish shortly.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I will be brief. I want to particularly thank my colleagues, the Minister, Deputy Roderic O'Gorman, and the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, who is helping him. I believe they have done a remarkable job in organising that in a calm, humane, compassionate, all-hands-on-deck way. It is not just that Department but also the Department of Justice, given the way we welcome people at the airport, the Department of Social Protection in giving everyone their social welfare details and so on, the Department of Transport in arranging buses for areas where displaced people have come, and the Department of Education in taking all of those children into our schools.

However, we have a question now. We cannot give up. We roll up our sleeves. We commit to do more. It will be more public accommodation now because the private has to be balanced with accommodation in the rest centres in the community, in refurbished buildings, in fast-build housing and in new centres. We commit to delivering that and to be the voice for the Irish people who stand with an approach where we welcome and recognise the rights of people coming to this country.

Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform (Deputy Paschal Donohoe)

I will make my point as briefly as I can. I have heard the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister, Deputy Ryan, describe the forces that at the moment are changing our world, changing Europe and Ireland and changing the lives of the tens of thousands of people who have come to our country. Sometimes, when I try to interpret what that change means, it is those glimpses that I see in my community and in the country that remind me of what this means on a very human level to those who have experienced the global trauma of war that is now afflicting their lives.

It is coming through Dublin Airport very late at night and seeing mothers and children in a corridor looked after by officials who are trying to support them. It is those who are coming to our country fleeing trauma that I can barely imagine and wondering where they are going to spend the night. It is going into a primary school in my constituency and seeing children who are fleeing war in a playground being supported by teachers and new friends who are also fleeing circumstances of terror and violence. It is calling into a home in my constituency and meeting somebody who, a year or a few months ago, was living in a home with a solid roof and thinking that despite everything, they might survive but who now find themselves in a bedroom receiving support, with their life changed, living in a different country and living a life they never thought possible.

Those human moments underscore for me the scale of the challenge Ireland and Europe are now facing and the choice we have regarding what side of the division, what side of the debate, we want to be on when human rights, the rule of law and the ability to safely protect our borders are challenged in a way that I had thought and hoped, as recently as a year ago, was unimaginable in my lifetime but which is now happening. I have also seen the reaction in this country. I have seen the hospitality, support and generosity but also the signs of growing division and debate.

Since 2019, Government has increased expenditure from €66 billion to over €90 billion. We have a €2 billion reserve for this year, of which €1.5 billion has been allocated to the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, to ensure the State is making available resources and support to those who are coming to our country having experienced conditions we can barely imagine. I hear the argument made that because some people are coming here, it means less for others. That is an argument I reject. Our country will become bigger, broader and deeper, not lessened, by welcoming those who are fleeing war and trauma. We are making these resources available to ensure the values and decency of our country are shown to those who are coming here by providing the public services and support they need and deserve.

Minister for Education (Deputy Norma Foley)

I thank the House for the opportunity to discuss the very positive response on the part of the education system and school communities to those seeking refuge in Ireland.

The very best and most insightful aspect of my job as Minister for Education is the opportunity I am afforded to visit schools across the country. In nearly every school I visit there are students who have recently arrived to Ireland either from Ukraine or through the IPAS system. These are children and young people who are compelled to leave their homes, often leaving family members behind. Too many have witnessed unspeakable tragedies. For these young people, school is now a place of normality where they can achieve some semblance of a routine and, I hope, focus on their well-being, friends and education. This is only made possible as a consequence of the incredible generosity and dedication of principals, teachers, special needs assistants, school secretaries, school caretakers, fellow students, boards of management and broader school and local communities. My Department is determined to continue its support for these huge efforts we are seeing from school communities throughout the country.

Members will appreciate the scale of the response when we consider that well over 65,000 people have arrived here from Ukraine alone since the beginning of the war almost a year ago. Figures show that over 14,500 children from Ukraine have now enrolled in schools in every county in the State. To date, approximately 9,000 children from Ukraine have enrolled in primary schools while over 5,000 are in our post-primary schools. Among the Ukrainian children and young people who are here, this represents an enrolment rate of 93%. This is one of the highest such rates among our European peer nations.

I have always known, and said, that education relies on a partnership-based approach in which we all work together to provide for our children and young people. For this reason, the Department moved immediately to establish regional education and language teams, REALTs, across the country to co-ordinate school enrolments for Ukrainian families. The remit of the REALTs was subsequently extended to include supporting children who are in the international protection system. I acknowledge the superb work of these teams. Schools that are catering for children fleeing the war in Ukraine and other migrant children are provided with resources to ensure they are supported in their education. Additional teaching resources have been granted to support schools in their work. Additional special educational needs supports and advice, and support and well-being, have also been provided. The issue of appropriate language supports is an important one. The allocation of specialist resources to schools takes account of the needs of pupils in this regard and figures show that nearly 2,000 schools have applied for and are now receiving English as an additional language, EAL, teaching resources.

As I said, our schools have done an incredible job. We have had capacity within our schools. We are conscious that capacity is challenging, in some places more than in others. We continue to work with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and his Department to meet any challenges going forward. On the whole, we owe an incredible debt of gratitude to our school communities for the excellent work they do every single day.

Deputy Micheál Martin

Hear, hear.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

The people of Ireland have an affinity with those who need the protection and shelter of other countries. It is an affinity born of our history of colonisation, oppression and dispossession. Just over 150 years ago, so many of our people escaped the starvation of an Górta Mór by fleeing to the four corners of the world. Through our history, we understand what it means to be forced in fear and heartbreak from our beloved homeland. We know the loneliness of exile and the humiliation of discrimination - "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish". We also know what it takes to build a new life in faraway places. This is a legacy that has formed a deep-rooted humanity, compassion and genuine desire to help those who come to Ireland seeking refuge from war, persecution, violence and danger to their lives. Racism, bigotry and discrimination have no place in Ireland; we are so much better than that.

The fundamental decency of the Irish people has been evident in our people's response to the refugee crisis sparked by Russia's criminal and brutal invasion of Ukraine, the greatest displacement of people in Europe since the Second World War. It is, therefore, all the more regrettable that the Government has failed to match this effort of the people with an effective plan for the co-ordination of supports and services for Ukrainian refugees and those seeking international protection in Ireland. This failure has crystallised most sharply around the provision of accommodation. The lack of accommodation for refugees was entirely predictable as the housing system in this State is broken. What we have seen from the Government is a failure to prepare and put in place a coherent, workable plan that meets the scale of the crisis. Far from implementing an all-of-government approach, it seems very clear that the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, has effectively been left to deal with this crisis on his own. Instead of the Government taking responsibility, we see Ministers acting as spectators and commentators. We see an approach defined by panic and lack of organisation.

It is wrong for the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste to make big commitments at an international level and in discussion with our European partners and then to fail utterly to back up those commitments with the planning, co-ordination and allocation of resources needed for a humanitarian effort of this scale. The surge in refugees and those seeking international protection, we must remember, is happening at a time where we have an asylum, immigration and direct provision system that is inhumane, not fit for purpose, far too slow and not properly resourced. That needs to change.

Rising to our moral obligations to protect those fleeing war and persecution is not, as claimed by some, an open borders policy. Every state controls the number of people entering its jurisdiction and Ireland is no different.

The Taoiseach spoke about managing immigration. What we need is a modern, efficient system that works, fulfils our humanitarian obligations and helps with the betterment of our society. This means that asylum applications must be processed efficiently, decisions must be taken efficiently, we must see an end to the limbo in which so many people find themselves and we need an end to direct provision.

The Government's failure to plan and prepare is matched only by its failure to engage with local communities, so many of which are already under the most extraordinary pressure. This has become now a lightning rod for the legitimate frustrations of workers and families who have lived for a decade and more with the nightmare of a housing crisis. This is a crisis which has caused real suffering and pain for communities which have too often been denied access to the supports and public services to which they are entitled. It is a crisis, let it be said, created by the bad and damaging housing policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Protests outside places where vulnerable people are being accommodated are wrong and they are to be condemned. They go against every notion of community. We must recognise, however, that many people attending those protests do so because they are angry. They hold legitimate frustrations. People may see no prospects for themselves or their families, and no easing of their difficulties. I refer to families with generations living under one roof in overcrowded homes. There are also those, a small minority, who occupy a very negative political space, who now seek to create tension, inflame frustration and direct anger towards vulnerable refugees. My message to ordinary, decent people across our communities is to reject those seeking to exploit their anger to advance their own agenda. This is not what Ireland is about and it never will be.

Those seeking international protection in Ireland are not responsible for crises in housing, healthcare and public services or for the neglect of people's communities. Responsibility for this lies solely and squarely with those in power - with the Government - and not with vulnerable people fleeing for their lives. I have no doubt that the people of Ireland will continue to respond with compassion and dignity to what is a great humanitarian challenge. The natural affinity of Irish people with the displaced and dispossessed is something of which we should be proud. It is a powerful and positive thing. It is part of what we are. The Government must now wake up and match the efforts of our people with a real plan that involves proper co-ordination and focused engagement and dialogue with local communities. Failure to do so only plays into the hands of those who thrive on conflict and division.

Deputy Pa Daly

It is nearly two years since the Government published its White Paper on ending direct provision. This followed on from the Catherine Day report into the system and recommendations from the Joint Committee on Justice. Both offered some hope of an end to the inhumane system of direct provision, which is totally inefficient and expensive and where one provider earned €400 million. Direct provision was originally established as a stop-gap measure. The Day report was clear in most of its recommendations and committed the Government to addressing several areas where refugees required support.

In welfare, work and education, it recommended access to driver licences, more immediate access to the labour market and better welfare supports. This was supposed to be the end of the impoverishment of residents, who had to subsist at the time on around €35 weekly. The demand for this work came from refugees themselves as part of a campaign by the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, MASI, and reflected the desire to be given a chance at earning a living. Barriers to entry still exist, however, as there is still a waiting period of six months for international protection applicants. The White Paper also committed to creating a means-tested international protection payment. Again, this was supported by MASI, demonstrating the desire from refugees to earn their own way, but we have yet to see it implemented. Catherine Day correctly took the view that she needed to look not just at accommodation but also at the processing of asylum claims. At the time, there were some waits of up to seven years. Delays can also cause great stress for applicants, leaving them in limbo. Legal avenues for appeal and due process must of course be respected, but the length of delay was too much.

In response to this, both the Catherine Day report and the White Paper recommended that measures be taken, through the use of technology, for example, to speed up applications. Amazingly, we are still seeing the use of paper forms, some of which are now being completed without the benefit of legal advice. The Day report did recommend the granting of a leave to remain for those spending two years or more in the system, a matter on which the White Paper was silent on. The undocumented scheme sought to address this and did some good work but there will be further backlogs soon. We need a system that is efficient and fair, and co-operation across the Departments of Justice and Foreign Affairs especially is required. The overwhelming majority of asylum seekers arriving are fleeing persecution but all deserve to have their applications dealt with swiftly to give them certainty.

The White Paper identified other flaws that should have been tackled as such with proper legislation and the establishment of an agency to co-ordinate many of its aspects, but it goes without saying that the most obvious miss was in relation to housing. The White Paper foresaw two phases in terms of accommodation: the first being State-owned reception centres, where applicants could spend their first six months; and the second involving more medium- to long-term accommodation. We have seen little or no progress on the reception centres which were supposed to be specially built to suit refugees' needs and located in appropriate places close to services. The second phase was left somewhat open-ended with approved housing body, AHB, accommodation, rent-a-room schemes, turnkey acquisitions and the refurbishment of commercial properties all in the mix. The Government made a start on turnkey acquisitions but the Russian aggression in Ukraine and the subsequent refugee crisis did, I accept, cause challenges. No attempt was made, however, in relation to the AHB housing, and with no increase in the capital spend next year, it is hard to see any progress forthcoming in expanding the housing stock.

In other areas, with Ukrainians, asylum seekers and those living here already, the Government must show action on Sláintecare, especially GP care and primary care centres. These are inadequate. For example, the out-of-hours services in Listowel for SouthDoc are totally inadequate. All-party consensus was supposed to be present within health, yet we see that Government implementation is way behind. It was difficult to find a GP for many over the past number of years, and putting vulnerable people who need treatment into towns and villages already struggling causes problems. This, though, is no fault of families who are in hotel rooms, and the protests outside their rooms are wrong. IPAS can conjure up accommodation from wherever, but without a whole-of-government response, this will only cause trouble. While I welcome the appointment of the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O’Brien, he is, in effect, triple jobbing and this is only going to be one of the areas for which he will have responsibility. This is not good enough.

I have described the Government’s plans to end direct provision as effectively being shelved, so I was amazed to find in a recent response to a parliamentary question that spending in the Department responsible is going down, yet commitments remain on the table. Some honesty there is required, and there is a need to work with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on targets for the overall housing stock and specialised accommodation. These are some of the measures we need. Our international obligations must be delivered. It is important that we are having this debate, because it is a long-standing problem. Everyone needs services and it is this need that they share with some of the people who have found themselves in refugee centres.

A mentality of division has been fostered by this Government - and previous governments - and the parties that constitute it for a long time. We see this in the context of the pandemic bonus payment. We see it in the pitting of the private sector against the public sector, rural against urban and, even yesterday, existing renters against new renters on rent pressure zones. Unfortunately, the division is rearing its ugly head across the State. Concerns about housing, crime and health are foremost in people's minds. Due to vacant properties being in areas where many vulnerable working-class people live, and in tourist and seasonal towns, there is interaction with migrants and refugees. The response has been worrying.

The vast majority of people in Ireland are decent, welcoming and fair, and we have seen this in the response to the international protection applicants and Ukrainians. The traction being gained by a small minority is due to an inherent exploitation of fears. I wish briefly to quote Roy Jenkins, a Welshman, a British minister and a European Commissioner in the 1970s. He recognised that people in Britain had been constantly stimulated and jolted out of a natural island lethargy by a whole series of immigrations, similar to here. He said that in the 1970s, when Irish people were being picked upon, "a few people, whether out of political opportunism or personal inadequacy, [had] deliberately whipped up prejudice, playing on fear and ignorance, and blaming the immigrants for the problems which were none of their making but which stemmed from previous parsimony in housing, schools and welfare services".

We need a united front against this rising tide of hate and we must combat falsehoods. Some 8 million Ukrainians have been displaced and less than 1% of those are in Ireland. There are no international protection applicants skipping social housing lists. The median processing time is about ten months. In 2021, only 0.4% of total EU immigrants came to Ireland and in November 2022 less than 1% of asylum applicants were in Ireland. Many of them have contributed to retail and to the Covid response.

Before I finish, I want to remember two people, both of whom happen to be from the south-east corner of my county. Joe Madden was buried on Monday morning. He was born in a mother and baby home. He was boarded out to Kilgarvan in County Kerry and at 16 he had to leave and ended up in Paddington Station alone with a suitcase, a migrant in a new life. I also want to remember Mike Quill, the famous Kilgarvan and Kerry man who was the leader of the transit workers in New York and who organised the poor and exploited people and worked for the civil rights for minorities. He said he worked for people who were "so low down on the economic and social ladder that [they] had nowhere to go but up." We should respect Mike Quill and Joe Madden, the latter of whom died and was buried on Monday morning. We should respect those migrants. It is the least we can do.

Deputy Kathleen Funchion

Last night, RTÉ showed "Mariupol - Unlost Hope". What struck me about this programme was the beauty of the magnificent modern city, with stunning parks, impressive architecture and town squares. It was every bit a modern European city and a thoroughly beautiful place to raise a family, live and work in a harmonious melting pot of cultures and beliefs. Heartbreaking stories were told in detail by ordinary people. I do not think anyone could remain unmoved by the plight of the Ukrainian people, particularly after viewing this programme. It should be noted that this was handled in a very sensitive and constructive way by RTÉ.

I am glad we are having this debate and that time was given to it. It is important that we continue to hold constructive and open conversations about how we are going to tackle the situation. It is also important for the Government to listen to the Opposition and those who are working in this field, who have come forward with constructive suggestions to improve the State's response.

On a personal note, my family has a very strong history of emigration and immigration. My dad, as many people know, was born and grew up in the South Bronx in New York. His parents had emigrated to New York and they always had a wish to move back to Ireland. Unfortunately, it did not work out for them but after he served in the US Navy during the Vietnam War my dad moved back to Callan, which was a bit of an adjustment, I am sure, after New York city. That is where we grew up and my sister now lives in New York. We grew up with the constant back and forth and I cannot imagine it any other way. Many people in this Chamber have that same history of emigration.

The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has been well and truly left holding the bag on this issue. I do not believe we are seeing the whole-of-government response we constantly hear about. It is not being experienced on the ground. The rise in right-wing protests is largely down to this complete and utter mishandling. I take this opportunity to remind people that it is not those fleeing horrific wars and situations who have caused any issues within our health services and housing. There is huge anger and frustration at the Government's handling of the situation. Unfortunately, it has joined a long litany of disastrous decisions made by this Government and previous Governments.

Much of the nexus of this can be found in the housing emergency, which has been decades in the making and has had a disastrous impact on so many people, families, communities and social groups. Everybody in this Chamber probably knows somebody directly impacted by the housing crisis. There are families in overcrowded and unsuitable accommodation, endless social housing waiting lists and exorbitant rents, to name just a few of the issues. We need the Government to finally start to take action on housing. What this crisis required, and still requires, is an escalation and focusing of minds, similar in scale to our response to Covid-19. I do not think I am alone in thinking the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has been left dealing with all of this. It has been extremely damaging to that Department.

In October last year, the Irish Refugee Council released a report on Ireland's accommodation crisis and its ability to adequately respond to the unprecedented challenges the war in Ukraine would present to Ireland over the coming months and possibly years. Its first and chief recommendation was to prioritise medium and long-term planning. Five months on from that report we are still jumping from crisis response to crisis response. The report highlighted a protection system that is in crisis. In 2022, approximately 70,000 refugees from Ukraine arrived in the State, in conjunction with a marked increase in the number of people seeking international protection from other countries. These trends have continued unabated with an additional 4,500 arriving in the State since the start of the year. Most NGOs working in that area put the figure for inward migration at about 900 people per week, which will continue.

The Government has said time and again that it is close to exhausting accommodation options yet I know of several suitable locations in my constituency. There has been huge buy-in from the local communities and in some cases they are looking forward to welcoming children into their local schools and sporting clubs. They have just not been followed up on. I imagine that is the same for nearly every Deputy in this Chamber. Obviously these locations have to be scrutinised - nobody is saying that does not need to be done - but there is no follow-up on the ground. There are several spaces in both Carlow and Kilkenny that have been visited by local authorities, where they have checked the various fire regulations and all that needs to be done. They have contacted the Department time and again with no reply. When we say one Department is not sufficient to deal with the situation, that is why. There has not been any further communication with people or organisations. It is unacceptable and it is feeding into all of that negativity.

The Irish Refugee Council highlighted in stark terms the downward trajectory we were heading on, going from the completely broken direct provision system to emergency accommodation to transit centres, where people were sleeping on floor and chairs, to tents and then to no accommodation at all. We recently reached a stage when people were handed vouchers for €25 and told "Sorry, there is no room here". We cannot allow this to become the new normal. I do not buy the suggestion that there has been a whole-of-government approach to this. The problems have remained within the confines of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, which is not equipped or empowered to address all policy areas relevant to any adequate response. My colleague Deputy Daly spoke about the White Paper on ending direct provision. Numerous organisations, including Sinn Féin, have called on the Government to recommit to implementing its recommendations. I strongly believe that when there is political will, people will mobilise to progress improvements.

We cannot continue to operate public services on a constant rolling crisis basis. Addressing this emergency requires us to develop new tools to tackle challenges. There is a wealth of expertise and experience out there. People who work in this sector are extremely frustrated that their ideas and recommendations are not being taken on board and that they are not being consulted with. They have so many good recommendations, in particular the Irish Refugee Council.

I would like to finish on a positive note. There was a very good and welcome rally in Kilkenny last Sunday. The Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Noonan, was in attendance, as well as people from People Before Profit and the Labour Party, trade unions and community groups. It was a really good and positive event. It was great to see so many people turn out. I say this because the vast majority of people want to help and be a part of a positive experience for people and they want to be welcoming. As I have already referenced, we have a very long history of emigration as far back as the 1850s and probably before, which has enriched countries, communities and families throughout the world. We have a thriving diaspora in nearly every country in the world and one that everyone is proud of. It is incumbent on all of us to welcome people, particularly the displaced and dispossessed, and provide them with an opportunity to rebuild their lives and enrich this country. The Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth will be looking at this issue over the next few weeks and I encourage Deputies to attend those meetings.

Deputy Ivana Bacik

I welcome this debate and am glad to have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Labour Party. It is particularly timely as next week, 24 February, is the sad first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. It is 12 months since Vladimir Putin began waging his brutal war on Ukraine. Such devastation, destruction and suffering has been inflicted on the people of Ukraine since then, with the war crimes in Bucha, the siege of Mariupol, devastation in the Donetsk region and reports of spates of war crimes, including sexual crimes, against Ukrainian women and children by Russian soldiers. It is a campaign of death and destruction in Europe the likes of which we had all hoped we would never see again.

This week, the UN estimated that more than 7,000 civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed. We know the death toll is likely to be significantly higher as the conflict has hampered humanitarian efforts, rescue efforts and efforts to count the dead. Tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides have been also killed.

We also know that the displacement of people has been enormous. Some 5.9 million people have been internally displaced in Ukraine and 8 million refugees have been recorded across Europe. We have a welcome debate this afternoon on how we can do right by those fleeing devastation and seeking sanctuary on our shores. It is not just people fleeing the brutal war in Ukraine but also those fleeing conflict and persecution in other countries. I refer to those who are fleeing the devastating consequences of climate change and those who may well now be looking to flee from the horrific earthquake in Türkiye and Syria. We have an ethical responsibility and a moral duty to provide shelter to those who come here seeking refuge. I welcome the Government's commitment.

In terms of the Ukraine conflict, while we are militarily neutral we cannot be politically neutral in the face of this horrific Russian aggression. As all speakers have acknowledged, there has been immense decency and humanity shown in communities across the country. A great welcome has been rolled out to those who have come here fleeing persecution and a great deal of community support, decency and humanity. Unfortunately, however, a small number of those on the political fringes have been seeking to undermine the immense generosity of spirit and have been making attempts to sow division. The sinister action by a small number of individuals must not be allowed to overshadow the overwhelming welcome that has been shown by most people in most communities. I look forward to joining with so many others from across the State on Saturday afternoon for the Ireland for All solidarity march, which will show the extraordinary warmth and generosity people across the county feel for those who have come here. However, issues with the accommodation of people arriving here have arisen. As the Taoiseach acknowledged in his opening remarks, some are now being left without shelter, which is appalling to see. A more co-ordinated response is required from the Government. We in the Labour Party have tried throughout the past year to be constructive in the face of this crisis: offering positive solutions to alleviate pressures on the system and to help support what must be a national, collective effort.

In preparation for today I consulted extensively with the Ukraine Civil Society Forum, the One Foundation, those co-ordinating the front-line community response, and others to try as best I can to see what front-line responders require as well as what those who have come here themselves seek. There are three headings under which we need to see a more centralised and co-ordinate response from the Government. The first is information. The second is the provision of accommodation and the co-ordination of that effort. The third is community support.

The information vacuum has been exploited by a small number of sinister actors. We have seen a lack of a central message from the Government on the benefits of inward migration, the reality of the conflicts and the brutality that so many are fleeing to come here. What we need to see is the roll-out of a national information campaign, as we saw during the Covid pandemic. That was done successfully by the State to counter the myths and disinformation about vaccines that were being spread. We had a very successful vaccination programme in Ireland as a result of that. Let us see that level of public information campaign rolled out now on refugees and migration and the benefits of inward migration to Ireland.

As part of that information, we need a clearer channel of communication with the Opposition. In October, the Tánaiste confirmed to me, in his then role of Taoiseach, that he would engage formally with Opposition leaders and spokespersons on the response to war in Ukraine. I welcomed that, but we have not seen the sorts of regular briefings with Opposition leaders and spokespersons that we had during the Covid-19 pandemic, which were so useful and valuable in ensuring cross-party support and information channels. We have not seen the necessary level of engagement with the Opposition in the way that would be so important in ensuring that we can support the Government and all of those involved in the collective effort to provide accommodation and supports to various communities. There is a lack of a communication channel.

In my constituency of Dublin Bay South, we have consistently called for a stronger and more coherent information channel. My three Labour Party councillors, Mary Freehill, Dermot Lacey, and Kevin Donoghue, and I all want to engage with the Government on this in our local area. We often find out about the provision of new accommodation on an ad hoc basis. It would be better if there was a central point of communication.

That brings me to the second point about co-ordination. This is something the Ukraine Civil Society Forum has consistently sought. We want to ensure there would be a person in government appointed as a central point of co-ordination. We know the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, under the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, has taken the lead and done a significant amount. I pay tribute to all public servants, not just in that Department but across Departments – civil servants and public servants who have done immense work to ensure supports for those fleeing conflict. I also pay tribute to the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, whom we know was appointed in December. We welcomed that appointment. What we have seen since then, in particular with the letters from the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, to other Departments, is a lack of support for the Department with responsibility for integration from other Departments, in particular the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which should be stepping up, because as we know accommodation is the single biggest crunch point. We should also see other Departments stepping up much more clearly.

It is great to see such a strong presence from Ministers here today for this debate, but why have we not seen it more clearly at a national level until now? I raised this yesterday with the Taoiseach. Why do we not appoint a Minister of State with specific responsibility for housing refugees and international protection applicants? The Taoiseach suggested there were logistical difficulties with that. Let us see a reallocation of roles among Ministers of State to enable that to happen. We need a central-point person. Like other Opposition Members, I have been consistently calling for a channel of communication to which we can send suggestions for sites and premises in our constituency. We engaged with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage last April when he asked Opposition parties to suggest vacant housing sites which could be used to house those coming here from Ukraine and other countries on a temporary basis. We compiled a list of sites in conjunction with our local representatives on this but we do not get the necessary feedback, for example, on Baggot Street hospital and on Jurys Hotel in Ballsbridge. I have people coming to me in my constituency offering sites and suggestions and we need a central point to which that can be fed.

On this issue too, it is not just about co-ordination, it is about capacity. I pay tribute to those in IPAS who are doing their very best in the face of this unprecedented challenge. We hear that IPAS appears to lack the capacity to take up offers that are being made to it for the provision of housing. We saw Daniel Murray's report in the Business Post. Not one of 300 properties offered by the HSE in recent times was taken up. RTÉ reported today that buildings are being put forward which are deemed unsuitable but we are not being told why. Why can Baggot Street hospital not be refurbished? It is a big site that could be used to provide temporary and emergency accommodation, so we need to see that level of co-ordinated response from the Government.

The third point I briefly want to make is about community supports. I very much welcome the community fund the Government has announced, but let us push at EU level for a cohesion fund. I raised this with Roberta Metsola when she spoke here in these Houses. We need community supports to be provided at EU level so that we can ensure that communities welcoming refugees and those seeking protection are themselves given the necessary supports and services to ensure everyone will get the accommodation and ancillary support they need.

Finally, I wish to stress our history as a nation of emigrants, and my own personal history as a child of immigrants means that we all need to work together to emphasise the positive benefits of inward migration. We are crying out for skilled workers in so many sectors. We have skills shortages and labour shortages in hospitals, building sites and the hospitality sector. Let us increase and enhance the legal routes for migration here to ensure we can harness the skills of those who are here. Let us harness the skills of those who are already here and reduce the waiting time for people in the international protection system before they are allowed to legally work. Let us ensure we remove any unnecessary barriers to seeking work for all of the Ukrainians. Many of the Ukrainians whom I met have such enormous skills and talents. They must be facilitated and supported in every way to work and be helped to enrich our country and make us a better and more inclusive society.

Minister for Finance (Deputy Michael McGrath)

I wish to share time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, will have five minutes, followed by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Heather Humphreys, and the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, who will have four minutes each. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Deputy Michael McGrath

I welcome the opportunity to provide some brief remarks. The timing of the debate is appropriate, now that we are approaching the first anniversary of the brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

It has, as we all know, unleashed a terrible humanitarian crisis. Millions of people have been displaced from their home and country. Ireland and many other countries around the world, especially our neighbours in Europe, are having to accommodate very large number of people seeking, first and foremost, protection. We should be very clear as to where the responsibility for all of this lies; it lies with Vladimir Putin and his regime. It was a completely unjustified and unprovoked invasion of a neighbouring, sovereign country in the form of Ukraine.

When we look at the number of people who have come here from Ukraine, over that short period of less than a year, it is quite remarkable that almost 75,000 people have come to Ireland to seek safety, shelter and protection. We acknowledge that represents an enormous challenge for all of us in society. We are not saying for a moment that we have got everything right. We acknowledge that it has placed real pressure on public services and, of course, most particularly in the area of accommodation where we already had a shortage. The priority is to make sure we provide the basic needs of people who come here seeking safety and security.

In the round, the Irish people can be enormously proud of our collective efforts as a nation. We have seen sports clubs, schools and community support groups open their doors and their hearts to provide essential support and céad míle fáilte to people who have come here. Government has never sought to pitch one group against another, or say that one group is competing for resources against another. Thankfully, we have an economy that is in good shape overall and our public finances allow us to make provision to meet the needs of the people who are coming here. That is what we have done in so many different forms in the past year or so. We will continue to do that. It does not mean we do not have the resources to look after people who have been here for a longer period of time or, indeed, people who were born in Ireland.

I want to say a word about the role of international financial institutions in the work that is ongoing and the work that lies ahead. Ireland, as a shareholder in these bodies, accepts its responsibility to play a leading role in meeting the needs in Ukraine and the enormous task that lies ahead with regard to reconstruction. The European Investment Bank, EIB, which is the EU's bank, plays an important role. Last year, it oversaw an emergency Ukraine solidarity package, encompassing the provision of immediate financial support of almost €2 billion to Ukrainian authorities and the repurposing of infrastructure project commitments to accelerate the delivery of an additional €1.3 billion.

In order for Ukraine to recover and for people to return home, if they so choose, it is essential that the infrastructure of the country is rebuilt and, when conditions permit, that reconstruction happens as quickly as possible. Attention will turn, when this war ends, and it will end at some point, to the enormous bill for reconstructing Ukraine. I recently met with the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London, EBRD. That bank is appropriately placed to play a leading role in the reconstruction effort of Ukraine. Ireland will be an important part of that process over the period ahead. I was impressed by the briefing I received from the president about the breadth of plans on which the EBRD is working, to assist the people of Ukraine in restoring the country's infrastructure.

The truth is that some of the essential works the EBRD is funding currently, in areas such as water infrastructure and electricity provision, are being blown up as quickly as they are being repaired. However, it has to continue to step in to repair that vital infrastructure, or else civic order will completely break down and the country will become unlivable for the people who remain. It approved a war-in-Ukraine EBRD resilience package last year, covering areas such as energy, security, nuclear safety and municipal services, trade, finance and liquidity for SMEs in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. I assure the House that the Government will continue to play its part, at an EU level, with the EIB and the EBRD, to do all that we can to support Ukrainian people in the long journey that lies ahead.

Minister for Rural and Community Development (Deputy Heather Humphreys)

I welcome the opportunity to speak and outline the work of my Departments. As of this week, the Department of Social Protection has issued 74,458 PPS numbers to people who have arrived here fleeing the war in Ukraine. To put that in context, it is the equivalent of the entire population of County Cavan arriving into the country. The challenge of supporting that huge influx of people in a short space of time is immense. As both Minister for Social Protection and Rural and Community Development, my Departments have played a central role in what has been a whole-of-government response.

The role of the Department of Social Protection is threefold: to provide people with PPS numbers, which are a key requirement in accessing public services; to assist with the provision of income support and to provide information and support on employment and training options. People arriving from Ukraine under the temporary directive have been granted the status to avail of the full range of income supports and employment services from my Department. Some 34,627 people are in receipt of an income support payment from my Department. Child benefit is being paid to 13,039 families in respect of 18,210 children. Some 28,287 additional needs payments were awarded to support applicants arriving from Ukraine in 2022, at a cost of €4.5 million and more than 90% of these payments were providing for clothing.

My Department's employment support services are available to help those who have arrive in Ireland. To the end of January, employment services staff have engaged with 21,500 people. I am pleased to say that more than 13,248 people from Ukraine are now in paid employment with 5,493 employers. In fact, there are some Ukrainians now working in the Department of Social Protection. I have to say they are contributing considerably to breaking down language barriers for people who are coming in to the country.

We know that as well as financial assistance, people need to feel welcome and to begin to integrate into their new communities. The Department of Rural and Community Development has provided funding of €10 million in 2023 for local development companies delivering supports for people arriving from Ukraine. This funding helps link people to all of the services and supports available in the areas where they are settling.

A range of practical measures has been provided to help integrate new communities into Irish life, including English-language classes in community settings. Furthermore, the community recognition fund aims to support the development of community infrastructure and facilities, in recognition of the contribution being made by communities throughout the country in welcoming and hosting a significant number of arrivals from Ukraine and other countries. It aims to support the development of facilities that will be used in the future by all members of the community, with a view to recognising the contribution these communities are making to our national response. The Government has allocated funding of €50 million to local authorities, based on the number of Ukrainians and international protection applicants located there.

A key principle of the fund is the need for the local authorities to engage with impacted communities before any funding proposals are submitted to my Department for approval. The projects will be delivered in these towns, villages and communities which have the highest level of new arrivals and a clear need for investment. I look forward to receiving the funding proposals from local authorities and seeing the real difference this fund will make on the ground in the local communities.

Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (Deputy Catherine Martin)

We, as the people of Ireland and citizens of this world, have a duty to protect those most at risk and to help the most vulnerable. How much more vulnerable can one be than when living in a war-torn country or living in hunger or drought, or living in a country where one's most basic human rights are at risk? Nobody wants to flee their home. People come here seeking peace and shelter. We must be compassionate, show empathy and offer these vulnerable people hope. To provide a safe haven is our duty.

The tourism sector, despite the other substantial challenges it is experiencing, has proven to be a critical part of the State's response to the humanitarian accommodation emergency. The use of tourism accommodation has been necessary in the short term to assist with this humanitarian crisis. The Government is now focused on how to continue the sustained support for those fleeing the war in Ukraine, including those already here, as well as those likely to be further displaced by the ongoing conflict. This means moving to an increased focus on rapid-build housing and a new call for vacant homes led by local authorities.

As the Minister for Social Protection has stated, it is also important to note that to date, 13,250 people from Ukraine have entered the labour force, with many taking up jobs in the hospitality and tourism sector around the country. They have become valued employees and friends and add a new element to the céad míle fáilte which Ireland projects to the world.

I cannot overstate the contribution the sporting community across this island has made to welcoming and integrating those who have sought shelter here. Welcome packs have been developed to support integration at grassroots club football. Athletics Ireland is offering free membership to Ukrainian citizens wishing to join athletics clubs in Ireland and in volleyball, there has been an indefinite waiving of player, coach and referee licence fees for Ukrainians who participate in the sport.

This generosity of spirit runs deep throughout our society and it is the bulwark that will protect against the discord and division sown by those intent on perpetuating hatred. Sadly, there have been negative comments about those seeking refuge here, often online and often intended to mislead. Online disinformation and hate speech are significant barriers to integration in our communities but we are already delivering a suite of legislation and regulation to address this challenge. The Online Safety and Media Regulation Act and the new EU Digital Services Act are critical for holding platforms to account for harmful online content.

We are also providing a creative response to the integration of people from Ukraine through initiatives such as Festival in a Van. Through its shared music sessions, Ukrainian musicians are invited to take to the stage and perform, either as solo artists or in sets with Irish musicians. These sessions have visited 20 counties, working with over 100 musicians in 50 locations. The Arts Council is playing a key role in supporting young Ukrainians arriving in Ireland. The Creative Schools programme has expanded its access cost protocol to allow schools to apply for additional funding to engage translation or other access services needed to meet the needs of migrant children. This enables children to engage with a creative associate or other practitioners, where children participate in creative practices such as art, drama and coding.

The national cultural institutions have also responded directly to the arrivals from Ukraine. The Crawford Art Gallery has facilitated a number of tours in partnership with the Cork Migrant Centre and SECAD Midleton, as well as the participation by young people from Ukraine in animation workshops. There is also a programme run by the Crawford Art Gallery for young co-creators residing in direct provision centres in the region.

Tá aithne ar Éirinn ar fud an domhain mar tír fháilteach, rud a bhfuilimid an-bhródúil as. Ní mór dúinn é sin a thaispeáint trínár ngníomhartha inniu. Cuirfear fáilte roimh theifigh. Cuirfear fáilte roimh chách.

Deputy Martin Kenny

In the past year, since the illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we have seen large numbers of people from Ukraine come to Ireland. They come here legally under the EU's temporary protection directive and under international law we are, of course, obliged to accommodate and facilitate these people who are fleeing war. We have also seen large numbers of people come to Ireland from other countries, including in Africa and Asia, seeking international protection. Again, we have international legal obligations to accommodate and facilitate people while their applications for asylum are being processed.

Ireland has all of these international obligations at a time when we have a crisis in providing resources such as housing, health services, education and social services due to decades of under-investment. All of this creates additional pressure for access to finite resources and when more people arrive into a community, wherever they may come from, the experience of that community is that the pressure for public services increases. A small number of people cynically use people's genuine concerns in order to create division and fear. They also present the new people coming into the area as dangerous and possibly even criminal. However, there is absolutely no substance in any of this. It is fear-driven hate-mongering.

All of us in this Chamber understand the real impact of not having access to a GP when a person is sick and needs care, of paying excessively high rent while waiting years on a housing waiting list or of having a child in school who needs extra assistance but not being able to get that assistance or even to get an assessment. All of these issues were here long before people came to Ireland from Ukraine, or any other country, seeking protection and were created by the refusal of this Government and previous Governments to invest adequately in all of these services. The generosity that has been shown by the vast majority of Irish people to people from Ukraine, Africa, Asia and many other places, is a reflection of that basic instinct within the Irish for fair play and community co-operation but the Government, as the lead actor in all of this, has failed to manage the situation adequately. Thousands of people made offers of rooms in their homes that were never taken up. Hundreds more came forward with proposals to provide larger scale accommodation that has not been utilised. Across Ireland, thousands of employers are looking for people to take up jobs while many of the new people coming to this country are eager to get into employment but the Government has not co-ordinated this opportunity for both, especially in healthcare, hospitality and construction.

The biggest failure of this Government has been its failure to communicate how people are going to be accommodated, how services are going to be provided for them and how communities will be properly resourced to deal with the extra demands generated by new arrivals. We are, of course, critical of the Government but we also have an obligation to humanity to get this situation resolved. We want to see the opportunity that new people coming into this country creates properly utilised to the benefit of everyone. In that regard, the Government needs to establish clear mechanisms for communicating with and resourcing communities, co-ordinating employment opportunities and developing more accommodation for vulnerable people from Ireland and abroad.

I recently spoke to some asylum seekers living in my local community about people coming here without papers because this issue has generated a lot of controversy. I was told that over 40% of genuine refugees in the world leave their country with no papers. They have to leave because they are in danger and they leave without papers. Often they resort to getting false documentation in order to be able to travel. In many jurisdictions, having false documentation is a bigger crime than having none and in that context, they often come here without documentation. That does not mean that there is not a process to deal with them. Indeed, they have the same right to be processed and have their case adjudicated as any other person.

The second issue I raised was that of people coming from what are called "safe" countries, that is, countries where there is no war that we are aware of. However, in many of these so-called safe countries there is conflict, discrimination, human rights abuses and other serious issues. I spoke to a man recently from Nigeria, a country that is often mentioned in this context. He told me that Nigeria has 200 million people. Almost 100 million are Christian and another 100 million are Muslim. There are parts of the country that are 90% one religion and 10% the other and vice versa and all of that creates great strife and difficulties. Those issues have to be dealt with when people come here and, of course, we have a process to deal with them.

In every community, we have to work on this. In my community we have seen large numbers of people being welcomed and accommodated but at the same time this has created some tensions and concerns, particularly around services. We cannot afford to ignore that. We urgently need to elevate the response to these issues. I cannot emphasis this enough. The Government really needs to get its act together, to communicate with people and provide services for everyone in our society, those from Ireland and those who come here from abroad.

Deputy Gary Gannon

One of the problems with sitting here listening to others' contribution is that one's own speech can often go out the window.

I will start with basic truths because we are living in an age of extraordinary misinformation and the targets of that are often the people to whom we are referring today. For me and for the party I represent, it is important to be unashamedly pro-migration. My community in the north inner city has been, for the last 20 or 25 years since we got our first influx of new communities, enhanced and enriched by migration, both in our communities and in our families. I will defend to my death the right of others to exist, to flee war, terror, persecution and to seek a better life for themselves and their families. Given the circumstances of the last year, we find ourselves in an extraordinarily difficult position. The scale of the challenged demonstrates the need for us to go beyond ourselves, to be bigger, stronger, better and more welcoming, and to enrich ourselves by demonstrating the type of values that we associate with ourselves as Irish people.

Often, we are in a state of paralysis when we discuss the topic of integration because the stakes are so high. For me, we are discussing the very real life and lived experiences of people who have been the victims of war and have fled in search of sanctuary. When they arrive, they are tools of propaganda. They are being targeted once more in very different ways and by equally nefarious actors in some parts. It is important to be very considered in the words that we speak. It is also important to speak simple truths because they are being manipulated at the minute.

For me, migration is an absolutely inevitable part of the human condition. It happened long before us and it will happen long after us. Migration is inevitable but it is often messy at certain points, and we know that from our own experience. Looking back into our own history, we know that between 1845 and 1855, 1.5 million people fled from starvation in this country, and went to places like America and elsewhere. The consequences of that are still felt today when we remain one of only two countries in Europe that has a lower population now than in the 1850s, the other being the Vatican City. We know migration is messy, but we also know that we have to stand up and meet those challenges.

In his speech earlier, the Taoiseach referenced something that captured my attention. He said: "As Taoiseach, I believe that we should welcome and protect those who come to these shores legitimately, because it is the best way of honouring our own story." In a couple of weeks' time, the Taoiseach will go to Washington. While he is there, he will do what every Taoiseach before him has done, and seek the regularisation of the Irish community over there, who have been told by others that they are not there legitimately. When we speak of migration, oftentimes the situation is a lot more blurry than we can capture in simple statements. If we are recognising our own traditions and history we should appreciate that language such as legitimacy does not actually come into the human experience. I was thinking of that when I was thinking about people who come from countries that are on an ascension platform, who cannot come here through legitimate pathways because we simply do not have them at the moment. I am thinking of people coming here from parts of the Horn of Africa and elsewhere in Africa, who cannot come here through legitimate means because they cannot access the requisite paperwork and documents that they need to arrive in a way that we would consider to be legitimate. I am thinking about people fleeing Afghanistan who cannot access the legitimate documents because the Taliban has not allocated passports since 2021. It is an incredibly complex story that we need to meet with compassion and openness. We must meet hatred with facts and information.

To the end of last week, I believe 74,000 people have arrived on our shores in the last year. I do not, for a second, underestimate the challenge that has presented to the State, the Government and the communities in which they are placed. I also noted some of the statements being made by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth on radio. A couple of days ago he said he had sent out a call to every Department to provide an updated list of buildings that could be used for accommodation and resources at their disposal to meet this challenge, and he received one response from the Department of Defence and nobody else. I suppose that as we had a conveyor belt of-----

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Deputy Simon Coveney)

That is not true.

Deputy Gary Gannon

The Minister is contradicting his own colleague. He mentioned it on RTÉ Radio 1's "Drivetime" on Tuesday. The Minister can take it up with him. The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, also put out a call for other Ministers to step up. If it is not true, it is certainly something that is being presented by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment's own colleagues.

What is true is that we have yet to meet the scale of this challenge in any sort of requisite way. If we accept the fact that migration is inevitable, we must also accept the fact that we are not meeting the challenge. In that same interview, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, said that we are not meeting our international obligations because we are failing to provide effective accommodation to people who are going to be here. That is the truth. What is the plan? That is the question for us. If we accept that 74,000 people have arrived here through our international protection system over the last 12 months, that what is taking place in Ukraine at the minute means that many more people are going to travel, and that refugees are being used as a tool of war not just in Ukraine but also in Syria and elsewhere, what is going to be the plan to meet those standards over the next year and into the next decade when climate becomes another reason people travel? Surely we need to stop acting surprised. What is absolutely true is that in an Irish winter, there were people sleeping in tents. What is true is that there are people arriving in airports who are being told that we are not going to be able to provide them with accommodation. They are being given a voucher and being told to go sleep on the streets.

We can all talk about the variances of truth, but what is true is that we are not meeting our international obligations. What is true is that there is a communications deficit that has played into the hands of nefarious far-right groups who are playing off the terror existing in communities because of an absence of leadership and effective communication on the part of the Government. We are failing in that regard. We and others across the political divide have stepped forward and asked how best we can play our part. Communities in Ireland are experiencing a confluence of crises in housing, health and poverty, which are not being addressed. They are also being met with a Government that is placing expectations of care without providing the requisite resources and appropriate communications. We are a year into this conflict and we are still getting that wrong. There is a job of work to be done in terms of how we communicate, inform and engage communities. I think we can all step up and meet that challenge. It is a failure on the part of the State and we will all have work to do in addressing that.

On Saturday I will be joining thousands of other people the length and breadth of the country who are going to step out with the simple message of Ireland for all. We will stand in solidarity with those who came here seeking international protection. We are going to acknowledge the crises that exist in this country in housing, healthcare, poverty and point to who is to blame for that and who is not. The blame for that lies squarely with the people who have been in power in this country since the foundation of the State, in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. There will be massive expressions of solidarity. I want to pay testament to the communities and community groups that have stood up and really demonstrated massive leadership in the absence of such leadership elsewhere. In my community, groups like East Wall for All and Drimnagh for All, like similar groups the length and breadth of Ireland, have rolled their sleeves up, engaged in friendship and demonstrated the very best of this country. On Saturday, that will be on full display, but there is a job of work for us to do around this Chamber and in Parliament in terms of how we resource, communicate and inform, and how we stop creating conditions in which nefarious far-right actors can step into the void, spread fear and take advantage of the deficit in leadership that is being left by the State.

Minister for Justice (Deputy Simon Harris)

I can assure the Deputy at the outset that one letter is a moment in time but everybody in government, across every Government Department and every State agency, is supporting the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth in the incredible challenge of trying to find accommodation, including in my own two Departments. All student accommodation is being offered again during the summer period to help people. The Department of Justice is offering the Thornton Hall site. We have managed to provide shelter to tens of thousands of people by everybody putting their shoulder to the wheel.

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak today on the issue of services for those seeking refuge in Ireland at what is a critical juncture for discussion on this issue. We are currently living through the greatest humanitarian crisis. I believe this country has shown extraordinary compassion in our response. We have welcomed over 75,000 Ukrainian people fleeing Russia's brutal illegal war to our country and to communities right across this country. We have given them shelter and protection. They have become part of our schools, colleges and workplaces. Many may go on to make Ireland their home. For those who have arrived and been issued with temporary protection permission, I am pleased to inform that House that today I am confirming that such permission has been extended until March 2024. I hope that this will provide some semblance of certainty and security at what is a truly difficult and traumatic time in all of their lives.

That permission has facilitated access to the workforce and to State services and supports for people arriving from Ukraine, uncertain as to what the future may bring. They are people who have had to flee their homeland because of this war. We see this in my other Department, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, where Ukrainian people are enrolling in English-language courses and post-leaving certificate courses, Springboard+ courses. They are completing Safe Pass training courses, among so many others, to gain education and to find employment. There is absolutely no doubt that this war has put pressure on us as a State, as it has with so many others, particularly when it comes to accommodation. However, it is absolutely the right thing to do.

It is the morally right thing to do, we are obligated to do it and I believe the majority of Irish people share that view. Ireland is a fair and compassionate country. We are a country that prides itself on being the land of céad míle fáilte. We believe in doing the right thing.

Each year, 60,000 people from non-EU countries study in Ireland. As the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney, knows, tens of thousands of people come to our country to work and to help provide public and private services each year. We want and need more people to do so. Immigration is a good thing. However, as Minister for Justice, it is my job and the job of my Department to enforce a rules-based system. Every immigration system across the world has rules. I stress that I want those who are eligible for international protection to get it quickly and, equally, I want those who are not eligible to get that answer and be asked to leave the country more quickly. That is what I have turned my focus to.

One of the key steps to deliver this has been new procedures in the International Protection Office to accelerate the process for making a protection application in Ireland. I have heard groups such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR, and migrant rights groups welcome an accelerated process because it provides certainty to people, rather than leaving them to languish in the system. We have committed additional funding of nearly €18 million to hire more staff and to increase efficiency in processing applications. We have, for example, established a faster process for international protection applicants from safe countries of origin. Deputy Martin Kenny was right when he said that anybody from any country has a right to come here or go anywhere else to seek international protection. That is absolutely right. However, it simply makes sense that those from safe countries of origin have a faster and more efficient process. The process is the same but is delivered at an accelerated pace. Applicants still go through the full application process and have all their rights observed. However, it will be much faster. We expect to deliver decisions for these people within three months now, compared to a waiting time of almost two years at the start of 2022. That is real progress and a significant achievement. I thank all the staff in the International Protection Office for driving this change.

Where people are not eligible to be here, we want quick decisions for them too and an effective deportation system. Deportation is a part of any immigration system and deportation orders are an essential part of the system. They have been in place for many years. They were paused during the pandemic but have now resumed. Those who do not have a legal right to remain in this country, having gone through the process, must and should return to their own country. As I said, during the Covid pandemic, we stopped deporting people for public health reasons. When a person is issued a deportation order, he or she is required to remove themselves from the State. The people to whom I speak, including gardaí, are very clear that the majority of people leave the country once they get such a request. There are some who refuse to leave and they are ordered to remove. In 2022, we issued orders to 528 people to remove themselves from the country. A further 160 have been signed since January 2023.

We also want to increase our efforts to prevent those who have no legal entitlement to come to Ireland from doing so. We have stepped up our engagement with air carriers to help them reduce the number of passengers boarding flights without the correct documentation. The points my colleagues have made about the different reasons people might not have correct documentation are fair and true. The situation is complex and we should not suggest it is simply the case that everybody who arrives without documents does so because they could not be bothered to have them. I get that. However, we must also be conscious of the legal obligations on airlines to ensure that people have the correct documentation.

Garda liaison officers will also travel to airports where issues arise in respect of document checking at boarding. I also want to dispel another untruth. We must start to dispel untruths put out there by the far right to stoke fear among communities. The untruths suggest there are no rules, deportation orders or checks. They suggest there is no role for the Garda. That is absolutely wrong. Every single person who claims international protection in our country is fingerprinted. Every single fingerprint is run through watch lists and databases. It is important people know that is the case because we cannot get off the pitch in relation to explaining the rules because otherwise people tell untruths and exploit fears in communities. We have to air these realities. We cannot allow the untruths and falsehoods of the far right to take hold. They thrive on this misinformation and travel from county to county and community to community spreading these untruths to create division and fear. It is essential this House continues to have these conversations and debates. It is right that groups across this House are looking at how we can come together to call this out.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Deputy Simon Coveney)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. I want to give Deputies some reassurance. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, and his Department, have done an heroic job over the past 12 months. It has not been easy. They have been put under enormous pressure. Nobody anticipated what has unfolded over the past 12 months. We have managed to accommodate the vast majority of refugees who have come from Ukraine in homes, hotels, hostels and good quality accommodation. That is not to deny that some of the accommodation is not good enough and we have to work on that.

The numbers are going to keep coming. This war is not going to get better anytime soon. In fact, it will probably get a lot worse before it gets better, tragically. That has the potential to drive a new wave of predominantly women and children who are fleeing for their own safety. We need to respond to that as a State. We need to explain to our people why it is happening. We need to work with them by communicating with communities. My Department is working to try to ensure that anybody who has come here from Ukraine and wants to work can do so. I want to ensure that entrepreneurs who may have been successful in Ukraine can also be successful entrepreneurs here. We are providing training programmes to allow for that.

Accommodation is the real pressure point. The reason I responded to the accusation that was made earlier was because I want to reassure people that this is an all-of-government effort. It is not the case that one Minister and Department are left to hold all the responsibility. We have offered office space in the centre of Dublin. We will take out our people to create space to assist in the collective effort that is needed to provide more space in city centre locations, as well as other locations, for temporary accommodation for people seeking international protection.

The truth is that Ireland has never faced a challenge of this scale to accommodate international protection applicants and the human outflow of the war in Ukraine. That challenge is likely to persist for some time. That is why we have a specific subcommittee group that meets, and will meet regularly into the future, to ensure we are using all of the infrastructure available to us. We are also creating new infrastructure where and when it is appropriate.

I take the point about better communication. Quite simply, the State does not have time to seek permission from communities to accommodate Ukrainian families and other international protection applicants. However, that does not mean we cannot communicate better than we have done in order to demystify some of the accusations that are being made, to deal with some of the myths that are out there and to reassure people that the system that is in place can assist local communities and the vulnerable people who come to our shores. I look forward to future debates on this challenge because it is not going to go away anytime soon. Unlike most parliaments around Europe, the vast majority of sentiment and contribution in this Parliament is moving in the same direction.

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Malcolm Noonan)

I reiterate what my colleagues have said about a whole-of-government approach, led by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, and supported by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. Looking at migration trends, there has been a six-fold increase in remittances back to other countries. We are going to have to deal continuously with those issues. Those trends are only going to increase. It is important that we have a collective response.

Since the start of the war, our communities have played a central role in helping people arriving from Ukraine to settle in their new lives in Ireland. The local government sector has not been found wanting in stepping up to the plate and assisting families arriving here by contributing through the community response forum and supporting the rest centres. My Department is also supporting the whole-of-government effort on Ukraine across the three strands of the emergency refurbishment project, the Offer a Home call and the identification of sites for rapid-build homes. Some 60 refurbishment projects are currently progressing through the emergency refurbishment (Ukraine) project, which will provide approximately 2,686 bed spaces upon completion. A total of 228 bed spaces have been refurbished and passed on to the Department.

The launch of the unoccupied homes call, Offer a Home, took place on 24 November 2022. The programme is led and managed by the Local Government Management Agency and overseen by our Department. As of this week, a total of 1,430 properties have been recorded as offered through the Offer a Home scheme. Of those, 1,355 have been successfully contacted, with 370 properties allocated to provide accommodation for some 1,115 beneficiaries of temporary protection to date. Allocation of the remaining offers will take place as soon as possible and a new media communications plan will take place shortly to maintain momentum.

My Department is also assisting the Office of Public Works with identifying sites that might be suitable to assist that office in developing a programme of rapid-build modular homes needed to accommodate Ukrainian beneficiaries of temporary protection on behalf of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. My Department has notified the Office of Public Works and that Department of a number of such sites which could together accommodate 700 modular housing units, catering for 2,800 individuals. Emergency planning powers are in place to support delivery.

With regard to those seeking international protection, the Department and local authorities have key roles and are working with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to maximise our impact on these important fronts. This is being done through the work of the programme board, which is managing the transition to new international support services, and through the work of the Irish refugee protection task force, which is co-ordinating and implementing the Irish refugee programme. The City and County Managers Association, which is representative of the chief executives of local authorities, has established a new international protection support service working group and a land use committee.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The Irish are an emigrant nation. I was an emigrant. In the 1990s, I moved abroad to seek economic and educational opportunities. My parents did the same in the 1970s and my grandparents did likewise in the 1950s. That experience of emigration is one of the defining characteristics of the Irish as a people. For generations, we have fled famine, persecution, war and economic hardship. That experience gives us a generosity of spirit that is unique in many respects. While there is no doubt that the significant number of people who have come to our country in the last year to seek international protection presents a real challenge, in the overwhelming majority of conversations I have had with people in my constituency and across the country during that period, I have seen that people want to do the right thing. However, I have to say that people need the Government to do the right thing too.

I will briefly reflect on my experience in Clondalkin. Like many constituencies and counties, we have seen a significant addition to our communities as a result of men, women and children, whether from Ukraine or other countries, seeking refuge from war, persecution and hardship. Contrary to what some Ministers have said today, there is no evidence of any plan on the ground. There has been virtually no communication or dialogue with local communities. There has been cursory engagement with some elected representatives but very little beyond that and absolutely no dialogue with communities. We are not asking for a veto - we understand that there is an emergency - but people have a right to be spoken to about what is happening in their communities in a reasonable and sensible way.

There have also been significant concerns about the safety of accommodation. One commercial facility that has been used, and which continues to be used, does not meet basic fire safety certification requirements. It is currently in the process of being evacuated. For more than four months, despite many of us raising these issues, we had men, women and children - and later men only - in a building that was not compliant with fire safety requirements. That is not evidence of a whole-of-government plan.

We have had very little co-ordination between different Departments. At one point, the international protection accommodation services, IPAS, were not even aware that our local partnership had integration workers working on the ground trying to ensure the best possible integration of Ukrainian families. Again, contrary to what Ministers are saying, there is very little evidence on the ground of real co-ordination between the Department of Health, the Department of Education and other entities. That is not to say schoolteachers, individual gardaí or community workers are not doing their absolute level best but that is very different from a whole-of-government plan.

We have also seen an incredibly slow pace in the delivery of accommodation, whether pledged accommodation, modular accommodation or refurbished accommodation. We are more than a year into this crisis. Again, contrary to what Ministers have said, this was anticipated. We were told at this time last year that as many as 200,000 men, women and children from Ukraine might seek refuge here. The Government itself anticipated the scale of this but has not risen to the challenge. All of this means that, particularly because of the over-reliance on hotel accommodation, we will face a very significant challenge come April.

Some of this is not new. The crisis in direct provision did not just arrive in the last year. In 2018, 600 men, women and children who had a legal right to remain in the country were trapped and essentially using direct provision accommodation as emergency accommodation. That figure is now 5,000. These are people who should not be in the direct provision system but, because of the Government's failure to plan, are trapped there against their will.

All of this is creating concern. To those people in our communities who have questions and concerns and who are hearing information from different places, I want to say that we on this side of the House hear you and are working with you to convince the Government to do its job better. The Government would do well to listen to many of us on this side of the House on that.

I ask those who are angry with the Government about other issues such as housing, healthcare and the failure of the Government to meet the needs of our communities not to protest at reception centres. I ask them not to protest against people seeking refuge or fleeing war and to instead join the rest of us in protesting what we should protest, the Government and its failures, including at the protest in Dublin this weekend.

Those on the far right, a very small group of politically motivated activists, have nothing to offer our communities. They seek to spread misinformation, prejudice and hate and to sow division. We are a generous people and a caring, positive and progressive nation. It is time the Government stepped up to the plate and behaved likewise.

Deputy Bríd Smith

I will share time with Deputies Gino Kenny and Boyd Barrett. I will make a couple of comments on the opening speeches from the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, both of whom focused heavily on the role of the European Union, the great European Union we have, the shared agenda and co-operation in dealing with what they see as a Europe-wide problem. Indeed, we have many problems across the globe but those of us in the First World have far fewer than the people who are fleeing war, famine and climate-related disasters. I thought it really disgraceful when crocodile tears were shed over the earthquake which had just happened in Syria and Türkiye while the summit itself was dominated by a drive to strengthen fortress Europe and to look at ways to batten down the hatches and tighten up all of the borders. The summit approved another €500 million in military aid for Ukraine, which can be compared with the €6.5 million in emergency humanitarian assistance for Syria and Türkiye.

This tells us that the powers that be in the European Union have three real priorities. The first is to make their own people pay for the crisis in their economies. They are making working people pay for inflation by pushing up interest rates and pushing wages down. The second is to pour weapons into Ukraine to defeat their Russian rivals and to use all resources to do so. Their third priority is to close borders to migrants and refugees. This is not helpful and does not show a Europe of solidarity. Rather it shows a Europe with its ostrich head in the sand, unlike the Europe portrayed by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste earlier on. This did not start with the earthquake. Going way back to 2019, there was a programme to return all migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Libya, where they faced death camps and discrimination and where Amnesty International has reported arbitrary detention, torture, cruelty, rape, sexual violence, extortion, forced labour and unlawful killings. The EU paid for people to be forced into all of this in that stateless country.

The EU has a lot to answer for but let us come to the answers this Government needs to give, which relate to the housing and health crises. We are recording the highest ever figures for homelessness and yet we expect everyone to sit back and say there is not a problem when people are coming into the country. The only people who do not recognise the problem are the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the people opposite me today. Successive governments have created problems in healthcare, in childcare and particularly in housing. These problems are feeding into the myths, lies and hatred being spread by the far right. The Government keeps burying its head in the sand at both EU and national level. Unless it owns up to these problems, we cannot work together to deal with this is a reasonable manner. In other words, we have to get rid of the Government and get a new government that will deal with these problems and face the truth.

The people of this country are extremely welcoming and decent. We understand, as a people, what it is like to seek sanctuary and safety. Our history of emigration is part of our DNA. In the past three decades we have been enriched by inward migration leading to multiculturalism. As we go around Dublin now, we see people from all over the world which is brilliant. It is a good thing. However, a small number of people in our society are trying to foment fear, misinformation and hostility. Their rhetoric is dangerous and designed to be incendiary. They want to blame migrants, those who are seeking sanctuary and safety, for the housing crisis and it is clearly not their fault. It is clearly not the fault of immigrants. It is the fault of successive governments' housing policies.

This poison cannot be allowed to seep into communities. It is absolutely insidious and must be resisted at all costs. On Saturday, we will see a march of solidarity that promotes Ireland for all, to celebrate diversity and reject division and hatred by a small minority of people in this country. That is the Ireland I love and the one the vast majority of people love. That is the Ireland we want. We want inclusivity. We want diversity. We want people welcomed. We do not want hate and division.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

In 1908 Ireland's greatest revolutionary and an immigrant, James Connolly, said, "Let no Irishman throw a stone at the foreigner; he may hit his own clansman." That is as good a summary of the reasons why thousands of people will take to the streets of Dublin this weekend, involving dozens of organisations, trade unionists, community activists, antiracism activists, housing campaigners, antipoverty campaigners and community organisations. They, like James Connolly, understand that if we are to address the very real problems that face our society in the form of a dire housing crisis, the desperate situation in our public services, particularly our health service, and the cost-of-living crisis, we need unity and solidarity. Those who preach hate and division and who seek to scapegoat foreigners, migrants or asylum seekers are the enemy of the movement that is fighting to address the housing crisis, the cost-of-living crisis and the crisis in our public services.

Connolly understood that. When he was speaking he was saying we need solidarity not to throw stones at the people we need to stand beside us to fight, to deal with poverty, the housing crisis and all the problems working-class people face. He was explicitly pointing out that we are a country made up of wave after wave of immigration. He was pointing out that the Irish in Britain and the United States were the subject of precisely the same racist stereotyping that those on the far right are now directing towards asylum seekers. The Irish were described as criminals. They were described as a danger to women. They were described as violent, drunken and illegal, and targeted by the far right as part of a strategy often by the establishment in those countries to deflect from the very real problems that existed in those countries.

On Saturday we are calling on people not to fall for the poison and tricks of the far right which seek to deflect people from a real struggle that needs to happen, which is a struggle for unity and solidarity of working people to demand that the Government solves the housing and accommodation crisis, the crisis in our public health service, the crisis of the cost of living and the poverty that many communities suffer. While the Tánaiste says that the left or those who are protesting should not try to point to those in government who are not responsible for these things, the truth is that time and time again the Government has prioritised the interests of vulture funds, corporate landlords, profiteering energy companies and those who have got very rich while other people are suffering the trauma and misery of the housing crisis and cost-of-living crisis. Of course, that builds anger and fury and creates the conditions where the far right can turn that anger against innocent asylum seekers and migrants.

We might all rightly say we must reject racism and stand up to the poison of the far right, but it would make it a hell of a lot easier if the Government, for example, stopped allowing people to be evicted into homelessness, started to deal with the land speculators and the land hoarders who sit on vacant properties and land making a fortune out of the misery that other people are suffering, and if they stood up to the profiteering energy companies that are making obscene profits on the back of the cost-of-living misery that huge numbers of people are suffering.

We make no apologies in saying that we will be out on Saturday in our thousands to say no to racism, to say no to scapegoating refugees and asylum seekers, to stand in solidarity with them but also to say the Government must own up to its responsibility for and failure to address the housing misery that people are suffering in this country and the cost-of-living crisis it has failed to address.

Minister for Health (Deputy Stephen Donnelly)

I will talk about the health sector response shortly, but I want to respond to some of the allegations I have just heard. It is extraordinary. People would think that colleagues opposite are the only people in here who care about people in this country. Deputy Bríd Smith spoke about feeding the myths, the lies and the hatred and yet she came in here and did exactly that.

Deputy Bríd Smith

The Minister needs to explain how I did that.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

Deputy Boyd Barrett talked about unity and solidarity. He said he does not want people to fall for the tricks of the far right and then he laid out tricks of the far left. He said we should not conflate real social problems that everyone in this House cares about with xenophobia and racism. He then spent his entire speech conflating those two things. I have sat beside the Taoiseach several times when he has responded to the Deputy's claims on this and he is right. In conflating real social challenges that everyone of us here cares about with attacks on places where children from Ukraine are living he is legitimising the hatred, the racism and the fury that he speaks about.

Deputy Bríd Smith

If the Minister can show us how he is really concerned about those social challenges, maybe we could talk about it.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

He should think about that and for once reflect on the fact that there may be other people elected to our national Parliament who care about the citizens of this country and the people we invite into this country.

Deputy Bríd Smith

The Minister needs to show it.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

The Deputy is very good at coming in here and accusing people of all sorts of things. He is very good at accusing the Government of not caring about the citizens of Ireland. However, he does not like it when people in government point out exactly what he is doing. I have the height of respect for Deputy Boyd Barrett and always have. He has essentially presented the march on Saturday as a march against racism, which I agree with, but he then conflated it by saying let us use it to attack the Government on issues relating to housing, which are very real but which are fundamentally different things.

This is a session to allow for statements on the co-ordination and response to those seeking refugee status. It is an opportunity for us all to speak with the unity and solidarity which Deputy Boyd Barrett refers to-----

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I asked for this debate by the way, just so that the Minister knows.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

-----and say there is no place in our country for racism, there is no place in this country for xenophobia and those who protest at places where children have fled from war in Ukraine. Those who protest outside on the streets are cowards and thugs in my opinion.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Absolutely.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

Why do we not actually act with unity and solidarity, and keep these two issues separate?

Deputy Bríd Smith

Because they are connected.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

Let us speak with one voice on the fact that we must protect those fleeing persecution-----

Deputy Bríd Smith

If we did not have a housing crisis-----

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

-----and then by all means let us have the most heated of debates about what needs to happen around housing and health. However, would the Deputies opposite please stop pretending that the only people elected to this House who care about housing, healthcare and education are those in their parties and of the far-left? This Government has a long way to go on housing but last year-----

Deputy Bríd Smith

A long way to go.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

-----we built more social houses than in any year since the foundation of the State. The Deputies opposite will never acknowledge or accept that.

Deputy Bríd Smith

That is just not true. We have the highest homeless figures ever.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

Last year the number of men, women and children waiting longer than the Sláintecare targets for care fell by 11%. The Deputies opposite will never acknowledge that. All they do is come in here and preach crisis, anger and fury, which is what they were referencing in their speeches.

Deputy Bríd Smith

Crisis? What crisis?

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

How about we all speak with one voice in calling out the xenophobia and racism and say that Ireland is doing everything it can? While our response is imperfect, we are doing everything we can to welcome people into our country, provide the children with education and provide the men, women and children with access to healthcare. Over 50,000 medical cards have been provided and we have doctors, nurses and therapists working in every community in this country, doing their best to provide tens of thousands of men, women and children fleeing war with the healthcare services they need. We have a housing crisis-----

Deputy Bríd Smith

And a healthcare crisis.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

-----which is why we are building more social homes than have ever been built.

Deputy Bríd Smith

And a hospital crisis.

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

More needs to be done and the Government is bending the resources of the State to that. However, could we please, for once, speak with exactly the unity Deputy Boyd Barrett talks about, call out the racism, bigotry, xenophobia and hatred and say to these men, women and children that they are welcome here-----

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

That is what we will be doing on Saturday.

Deputy Bríd Smith

That is what we are doing and-----

Deputy Stephen Donnelly

-----and that we will do everything we can to protect them? We will not get it all right but by God we will keep trying.

Deputy Bríd Smith

-----we are calling out the failure of the Government to house people. Over 11,000 people are on the streets in this country without homes.

Minister of State at the Department of Health (Deputy Hildegarde Naughton)

The planning, management and allocation of health resources has been particularly challenging over the last year, due to the arrival in Ireland of over 80,000 refugees in 2022, the majority of whom are from Ukraine. Refugees arriving in Ireland have different health needs from the rest of the population. Furthermore, being a refugee is a social determinant of health, which is associated with considerable trauma and vulnerability. We need to recognise that refugees and migrants are a population group that has to be catered for in line with the Sláintecare reform programme and the HSE national intercultural health strategy.

The HSE national intercultural health strategy provides a comprehensive and integrated approach to addressing the many unique health and support needs experienced by refugees and other migrant groups. To address the distinct health needs of refugees, the Department of Health works closely with the HSE's national Ukraine health response planning and co-ordination group to plan, co-ordinate and support the delivery of healthcare services for the growing refugee population. Delivery of health services to incoming Ukrainian refugees and international protection applicants has necessitated the rapid mobilisation of dedicated staffing and services which heretofore did not exist. In this context, the HSE has developed an integrated refugee health service delivery model to provide healthcare services for refugees. The model includes a health assessment model for Ukrainian refugees in the national transit centre in Citywest, which identifies individual health needs.

The HSE has established area crisis management teams in all community healthcare areas, which complement existing community services. The crisis management teams are co-ordinating with local service responses and they work closely with the community response forums to co-ordinate interagency services at the local level. Community healthcare services include multidisciplinary teams that are providing in-reach services to assess urgent health needs and are referring refugees to the appropriate services. The teams conduct risk assessments on Covid and other health issues, including infectious diseases.

GP capacity to deliver services to the arriving refugee population remains a significant issue. There is a finite resource of GPs and capacity challenges already existed prior to the arrival of refugees from Ukraine. The accommodation model that is being used to house refugees adds to the increasingly challenged capacity. The uneven geographic spread of refugees, which is concentrated in communities along the Atlantic coast, is causing a significant strain on GP capacity in many areas. There are more than 1,100 dispersed facilities accommodating Ukrainians and other refugees across the country. Demand for GP services among the refugee population is surpassing the demand from the existing population. The HSE, in conjunction with the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, has prepared bespoke options to deliver GP services to refugees accommodated in hotels and other temporary settings. The exact model varies depending on the number and geographical distribution. However, all have access to GP out-of-hours services. Temporary sessional GP clinics are provided on a weekly basis to deliver regular services, increasing the number of sessional clinics across the country to 40 per week. This is a HSE priority for 2023.

Another HSE priority is providing vaccinations and immunisations to refugee populations. All refugees have access to Covid-19 vaccinations. They can be requested from their chosen GP or pharmacist and accessed through the HSE vaccination centres. All community healthcare organisations, CHOs, are advising on how to access vaccination services, while on-site clinics have been provided in a number of settings. However, the uptake of vaccinations in migrant populations is low. The risk of spread of airborne diseases is greater for beneficiaries of temporary protection and international protection applicants due to the congregated living arrangements. To mitigate these risks, the HSE established a catch-up immunisation programme for migrant children and young adults. The roll-out of the catch-up programme is under way and will have commenced in all CHOs before the end of February. In addition, targeted public health communications are delivered to refugee populations, advising them of how to keep themselves or their families safe from respiratory illnesses across the winter period and how to access Covid and flu vaccinations. The "keep well in winter" message resources are available on the Health Protection and Surveillance Centre website. As I am conscious that I am sharing my time with Deputy Troy, I will let him in.

Deputy Robert Troy

Next week is the first anniversary of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. It is fair to say that it has been the catalyst of the largest displacement of people since the Second World War and in the history of the EU. I want to put on the record of the House my thanks to the communities in my constituency and across the country for their response and welcome. This debate is timely in the context of that first anniversary. It is also timely in the context of a huge number of people seeking international protection from other war-torn countries and because it is a debate that is being held in every parish and community across this country. It is important that legitimate and genuine concerns are heard and listened to by all of us in this House. Doing so will enable us to improve our response to what is an unprecedented challenge. There are areas in which we can do better. Last week Billy Kelleher MEP shared a video of a modular unit that was built in four weeks to accommodate 400 people. Despite us being 12 months into this crisis, we have yet to do this. It beggars belief that there are still many State-owned buildings that have not been brought into use to help with this issue.

We know that many of the people who are coming through international protection are very genuine and we have a moral and legal obligation to help these people. However, we also know that there are people coming in as economic migrants. For people to have confidence in our system we must ensure it is open, efficient and incorruptible. Last week I submitted a parliamentary question on the Dublin Convention, which enables any country to return migrants to safe countries if they come and present in a second country. In 2022 there were 24 ongoing transfer decisions and only three people were returned. That seems a low figure. When we are looking at economic migrants, we should be looking at assisting them through working visas in areas where we need these workers, such as construction and transport, and we should look at using technology to speed up the process. We should also look to increase the number of people processing applications rather than reducing the number of people processing applications. In doing so, we will be able to move more swiftly to approve those with legitimate claims to asylum and return those without legitimate claims to their homes, bringing every journey to its rightful conclusion.

We are all incredibly fortunate to reside in a country that protects our fundamental well-being and our most basic freedoms. To live in Ireland is a privilege and that privilege creates in us a moral obligation to help those whose condition of birth was not so lucky.

Deputy Thomas Gould

For the past 200 years Irish people have travelled all over the world. They have moved to Australia, the United States of America, England and Canada. Personally I have friends and family members who have built lives in these countries. In some cases they were welcomed with open arms but in others they fought racism and prejudice. "No Irish, no Blacks, no dogs". Unfortunately, we all know the saying well. It is wrong and we know how Irish people felt when they met that hatred and prejudice. Irish people have enriched many countries and communities and helped to build those communities and countries. On our island we have also welcomed people who have enriched our country and our communities. Diversity has strengthened my GAA club, St. Vincent's GAA club. Children all over the world are having fun playing our national games. Is that not great? They are building lifelong friendships and communities.

We are now faced with an asylum crisis the likes of which we have never seen before. People are being forced to flee the wars in Ukraine, Palestine, Afghanistan and Syria and to seek refuge here. We must give them that refuge. As other countries have done for our people, we must now do. I commend the work being done by many groups in our communities, such as the GAA, other sporting organisations and clubs, Nasc in Cork, Meitheal Mara, Cork Life Centre, Cork Penny Dinners, our schools and many more. People are working to open their arms and communities to those who need help and support.

The Minister has often heard me come into this Chamber to talk about the neglect of the northside of Cork. The reality is that communities like the one I am from in Knocknaheeny and Gurranabraher have been abandoned by the Government for far too long. The Government has overlooked the needs and ignored the cries of communities for supports, housing and healthcare. For example, there is a lovely community in Ballyvolane on the northside of Cork city in my constituency. It has no community centre, no primary care centre, no post office, no park and ride facilities and I could go on. The youth clubs and community groups there are at full capacity all the time. The Government is to blame for not putting in the services and supports for this community and many other communities like it. When vulnerable people blame vulnerable people, the only winners are those at the top because when people look sideways, the Government is let off the hook.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael must acknowledge their failings and work with communities. They must communicate with communities and provide the support and services needed as we should not be pitching one group of vulnerable people against another. I am proud to be from the northside of Cork. I am proud to be from Cork and to be Irish. I am a proud republican. I will not stand to have our nationalist identity used by those who sow hate in our communities. I spent 13 years campaigning on housing, against homelessness and for community services in Cork. Those who suddenly claim to care about our homeless people did not stand with me during those campaigns. They are now using the housing crisis, the crisis in healthcare and the cost of living to further their hateful agendas and I will not allow it.

There are rumours that a prominent English fascist will visit Cork in the coming days. I am sending out a clear message as a Deputy for Cork North-Central and a proud Corkman, that there is no place on the streets for this man or for anyone who holds his beliefs. Do not allow him to fool you. He once said: "I've never felt a connection to Ireland or felt Irish". He has supported soldiers who murdered innocent Irish men and women on the streets on Bloody Sunday. He does not care about our communities. He does not care about Ireland. He cares about spreading his disgusting hate. We are better than that. We should be fighting for a new Government that puts people and communities first. We should be fighting against those who want to divide us. Instead, we want to fight against those who would stop change. Thomas Davis once said:

If you're to Ireland true,

We heed not race, nor creed, nor clan,

We've hearts and hands for you.

That is what republicanism is. It is what we stand for. It is a message we want to bring to our communities because we believe that by working together and supporting each other we will welcome these refugees.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

Like most people, I want to see a situation where we can provide shelter and safe harbour for those fleeing violence, war and famine. Like most people, I believe this country should be the good Samaritan in times of need. It must be said that many refugees and migrants have been welcomed successfully in communities in most parts of the country.

However, I will address today's debate. It is possible to show compassion to those who really need it and yet seek a sustainable and robust system that cannot be abused. It is possible to seek compassion for those who need it and still be critical of the Government's policies. The idea that critics of the Government's policies are in some way xenophobic is absolute nonsense. It is a cheap defence of disastrous Government policies over the years. Raising legitimate, genuine concerns, as Deputy Troy mentioned, is not a threat to cohesion. The disaster in housing, health and transport is the threat to cohesion.

The first issue I will speak about is the lack of information that surrounds this debate. This is one of the key problems at the moment. It is incredible that there are many debates on radio stations, on television channels, in homes, in workplaces, on sports fields and so on, but this is the first dedicated specific debate we have had on this issue in this Chamber as far as I can remember. We are Teachtaí Dála. That literally means we are the messengers of the people to this Dáil. It is unhealthy democratically for there to be such a chasm between the concerns of the people and the issues being debated by Deputies in this House. One of the reasons for the lack of democratic debate on this issue is that an enormous amount of name calling is associated with it. We saw it a few minutes ago. People are often afraid to speak. Debate is purposefully stifled at times by those in the political extremes for their own political agendas. It is not accidental. It happens by design. Many on the political extremes are using name calling and throwing slurs around like confetti and they do so to inhibit debate and discussion. The engine of a functional democracy is the competition of ideas. People can challenge and debate issues respectfully without fear or favour. The best ideas are then selected as solutions to problems and as the way forward. However, if debate is shut down, censored and a chilling effect is created, the competition of ideas is prevented. In fact, the debate is pushed below ground. People who have genuine concerns are pushed into the hands of people who seek to do damage.

A Fianna Fáil Deputy stood up this week in the Dáil and supported the provision of supports to refugees but also said he wanted a robust application system. He was accused by People Before Profit and by the Social Democrats of dog whistling. There is a McCarthyite feel to this. Even when people do not say something, some people will strategically misinterpret what was said and slur those people to shut them down. The far right and the far left need each other. They want to turn the Irish political system into a massive battle of these two extremes. However, the vast majority of the population, middle Ireland, wants a common sense solution to this crisis. Name calling is not a cost-free exercise. It inflames the situation and we are currently seeing reports of attacks on both sides by both sides. We need cool, calm heads, to deal with this respectfully and we need light, not heat, in this debate. As I said, most people want to help in these areas and plenty of great organisations have been helping.

We pay credit to the churches, grassroots communities, clubs and organisations on the ground helping those integrate.

The Government handling of the process has been a mess and it is very important to say this. The issue of consultation is very important. There is a complete lack of consultation happening in many areas. People need to be treated with respect. They need to be treated as adults. They need to be listened to and spoken to. If we give them the information, we are far more likely to have successful outcomes in these situations. I am thinking of an example in Loughrea in County Galway where rumours were circulating on whether O'Dea's Hotel would be used for asylum seekers. People wrote to local councillors and Deputies. All of them came out stating vehemently that there was not an ounce of truth to the rumours. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, wrote to constituents stating she was in contact with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and that O'Dea's Hotel in Loughrea would not play an active role in housing refugees or IPAS asylum seekers. A couple of days later, Deputy Cannon said that was not true.

This is happening all over the country. There is no confidence or trust. The Government is burning trust when it does not speak to people honestly about what will happen in their areas. In Lismore genuine people were annoyed because the hotel in the centre of the town was to be used to house refugees. They were annoyed because the authorities did not come to discuss it with them. They said they could have been part of a solution to find accommodation that would not have put the livelihoods of people in the local area under threat. The Government did not help in this area.

This needs to be said. Why is it the case that most of the accommodation is being located in working-class areas? This is an incredible situation. We should have an even and fair distribution of people who need refuge in all socioeconomic backgrounds. I have been a long time in politics and I have to say I am cynical. It is the nature of being around politics for a long period. It is hard for me to accept this is purely accidental. That is the God's honest truth. We need community dividends for these communities. If people in a working-class area are already suffering from the lack of housing, GPs, school places and transport and the State brings 500 people into an area that is already deprived of investment, it will cause stress among some people. A community dividend and a real-time investment in housing, education, transport and GPs will ameliorate this stress. The Government has spoken about the €50 million community recognition fund. How much of that has been spent? I bet I am not wrong to say zero has been spent at this moment in time. The roll-out of this money will be very slow because that is the way the system works.

The application process is also shockingly slow. This is not good for the people seeking asylum. It is definitely not good with regard to scarce resources. People seeking asylum are waiting 18 months on average to get asylum. Some 5,000 asylum seekers have been waiting for longer than two years for their applications to be processed. It has taken three years for 1,000 applicants to have their applications processed. It is incredible that there has been a person in the system for 14 years whose first application has not been processed. I am not speaking about appeals. We need a system that is working. That needs investment, staff and resources.

Newstalk reported that 5,000 asylum seekers arrived in Ireland without valid travel documents last year. That is 40% of the number of people who came into this country. I am not saying for a second that all of these 5,000 people are not real in any way whatsoever but the truth of the matter is that this figure is higher than the total figure going into the Netherlands without documents or on false documents, even though the Netherlands has a population three times what we have in this State.

All we are saying is that people want the system to be robust. They want a system that can differentiate in a speedy fashion between those who need asylum and those who do not. There is a cost to this. It costs €18,568 a year to provide accommodation for those seeking asylum. If we extrapolate this to the 5,000 people who are without documentation or have false documents, it adds up to €141 million a year. At present, 14,000 people have applications for processing pending. Those who destroy travel documents to confuse the system or slow it down should be sent home. It should not be controversial to state that a person who breaks the law should not get asylum in this State. Dysfunction in the application process is the responsibility of the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

There is also a question about what happens when a person is deported. My understanding is that when a person is deported it is usually left up to that person to leave the country. I understand there is no way for the State to check whether the person has left. This means we do not have a process that can guarantee deportation has happened. Perhaps the Minister might clarify that.

If we are going to provide services, and I believe we should, and resources for people who seek asylum, they should also be available to Irish people in need. If we differentiate between Irish people and newcomers, we will sow division in society. There is an incompetency with regard to how the Government is providing accommodation for asylum seekers. The modular homes were promised in October. I do not believe there is a modular home standing with a family in it as of yet. Through a parliamentary question I submitted, I found out that 34 properties were purchased by the Department to house people with asylum. The latest information I have is that only one is of use. A total of 500 properties were identified last April for use by people who need asylum. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, appeared on "Prime Time" just before November and said that only ten of those 500 properties were in use. Of the people who offered their own accommodation and a room in their own house to help somebody with asylum, 85% of the offers were never activated. People still contact me to state they put their names down last April as willing to give a room in their house and nobody has contacted them, even though I phoned the authorities to try to make this happen. There is a major difficulty in this regard.

I want to speak about unaccompanied minors. This is a very important issue. I understand there are 208 children in the State who have been granted protection or who are applying for protection. These are the most vulnerable people. These are the people for whom your heart would break. They have left war and they are on their own in this country without the support of their parents. I understand some of them are in residential care and foster placements. Since 2017, 45 unaccompanied children have gone missing in the State. The reply to a parliamentary question I received in recent days indicated that ten children are unaccounted for in the State. This is a shocking dereliction of duty with regard to people who are most vulnerable.

We must do our best to help people in need of safe harbour but it must be sustainable and managed. There is a question of physics. There is a question of the incompetency of the Government with regard to housing, health and education itself being a physical block to being able to provide for people. Reality and common sense must also play a part in this.

Minister of State at the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Deputy Joe O'Brien)

I will start by briefly laying out the additional responsibilities I have taken on as Minister of State with responsibility for integration. These are to finalise, publish and oversee a new national action plan against racism; develop a new national migrant integration strategy; oversee the asylum, migration and integration fund; oversee the international protection integration fund; and assist in the area of community engagement.

My role in the Department of Social Protection is also relevant. I oversee the community employment and Tús schemes. These schemes not only play an important role in the provision of community services but also a crucial role in community integration and social inclusion. I confirm that from next month onwards, people who have come here under the temporary protection directive will start to become eligible for community employment and Tús schemes. It is important to note that people with refugee status can also apply immediately for community employment schemes once they turn 18. Community employment in particular can play an important role in migrant integration as it has a training element which will allow English language classes to be taken on and paid for.

It is my role in the Department of Rural and Community Development that brings the most added value to my new integration responsibilities.

Last year in the Department, additional resources were provided to the community services programme for volunteer centres and the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, to help to put more community workers on the ground in response to the Ukraine crisis. This commitment has continued into this year with an additional €11 million put into SICAP and volunteer centre supports.

I acknowledge the leading role the community and voluntary sector has played in the initial human and humanitarian response to people arriving in Ireland seeking protection and I acknowledge that this response continues. I also acknowledge the role of the community and voluntary sector in responding peacefully and strongly to overt expressions of racism in their communities. I draw attention to the fact that I launched the communities integration fund yesterday. The fund has a broader function in terms of promoting migrant integration at a local level but it also supports community-based measures to combat racism and similar xenophobia.

When we stand as allies in solidarity with those who are the targets of racism, it is important that we do so peacefully. Some people falling into the trap of using racism can be guided out of it if we avoid polarisation and better disseminate the facts about migration and our immigration system. The broader reality of racism can sometimes be lost by blaming it all on a small group of individuals who express it explicitly or publicly but, sadly, racism is much more pervasive than that. We all need to be conscious of how we can end up using it unconsciously, which can feed into problematic attitudes and behaviour.

I am glad to say that the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and I plan to launch the new national action plan against racism next month. I mentioned that part of my role involves community engagement and I also referenced the need for better dissemination of the facts about migration and the immigration system. I am glad to say that the Department of the Taoiseach, in conjunction with other Departments, is working on a process whereby a whole-of-government communications approach on the facts about migration and the immigration system is being developed to help to counter the misinformation that is currently all too prevalent.

The seriousness of the accommodation situation at the moment, especially for people seeking international protection, means that as soon as accommodation becomes available, we need to use it immediately. This sometimes leaves us with a very small window, if any, for sharing information in advance. I want to acknowledge the cross-party co-operation at a local level in assisting with accommodating people who are seeking protection. Over the next two years, with my integration responsibilities, I see my overarching role as one of pushing that key White Paper policy of "integration from day one" for international protection applicants.

On Monday, I visited Roscrea and Borrisokane in Tipperary, which are a great example of two communities that have reached out through groups like the Tidy Towns group and the Men's Shed group to new people living in their communities who are international protection applicants. There are numerous examples of this happening all over the country where collaborative projects are used to bring people together, benefit the community as a whole and inoculate it against attempts to spread lies and hate. I take this opportunity to encourage all communities, villages and towns across the country to reach out to people living in their area who have come to Ireland to seek protection. As we go forward, we will be looking at every way possible to encourage this interaction and to support their efforts to do so.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this debate. I believe migration is at the core of the Irish story. It is seen in the faces of our refugees so painfully depicted on the quays of our cities. I have seen in places like Toronto the bravery of people who took in ships wracked with disease from Ireland. By 1900, half of the people born in Ireland were living overseas so we have good reason to be understanding of the people who are fleeing to our shores. It is not just about history. Our economic turnaround has been based on creating a welcoming location for people from all parts of the world to come and live and work, and our continuing success depends on our capacity to manage migration. However, I believe the surge in migration of people now will test our values and this is a real challenge for us as a political community.

In my belief, refuge from persecution is a fundamental pillar of democratic European values. After the war and the devastation that was done, it was recognised that this was essential and it remains essential. However, the weaponisation of migration by the Russian military machine is clear for all to see. It is a deliberate part of their strategy and it is designed to create conflict in European societies like our own and, ultimately, to break what has been achieved by the European Union.

I believe migration is going to remain one of the key challenges for this generation and while it is now hitting with enormous urgency, we cannot make the mistake of just responding with ad hoc solutions. My call today is for two things: first, the creation of a citizens’ assembly on this challenge of migration; and second, the adoption of a cross-Government plan to respond to this challenge with clear responsibility for actions designated to all of the Departments and rigorous accountability for their delivery.

On the citizens’ assembly, I believe it has an excellent track record and is very relevant to our experiences now. It has often demonstrated that citizens are far ahead of the political class in their appetite for action and reform. It mobilised cross-party co-operation in this House which has been crucial in many of these instances of reform to create the necessary consensus to progress, and it has given confidence to communities and to political leaders to take on difficult tasks.

I also believe we have proven models for cross-Government collaboration that we are not putting into sufficiently effective use at the moment. We need to break down silos. We need to create those commitments and responsibility. I acknowledge the superhuman effort that the Departments at the front line, either processing new arrivals or seeking emergency accommodation, are undertaking. However, we cannot afford to create new marginalised communities in our effort to meet this urgent need and we have to ensure there is a plan in place to deliver for the long term. It is essential that we see education, health, sport, training and community structures all supported and planned now, with the resources there to support them. We need also to see the rules-based system working. We have to recognise that there are pull and push forces, and we have to manage that process and ensure that all elements of the migration system, including deportation and return, are seen to work.

I commend the Government. I am not one of those who bemoans the Government by pretending this was easy and that it could have been giving long-term advance notice to people. That is not the reality. We now need to take a new approach.

Deputy Emer Higgins

Migration has always been part of our national story, both inward and outward. Sometimes, that is people moving in search of adventure or employment and, at other times, it is people moving here to learn, to work and to live. Often, it is people coming to our shores in search of international protection. Whatever the reason may be, what we need is an immigration system that is fair and compassionate. Those who do not have a legal right to stay must have access to fair procedures and right of appeal but, ultimately, they must leave. The Government is working on making that decision-making process faster in a way that puts fairness at the heart of the process.

This last year has been unprecedented, not just here in Ireland but right across the world. The illegal invasion of Ukraine has led to millions of Ukrainians fleeing Russia's war and 72,000 of those have arrived here. We have offered them refuge from the war, from terror and from fear not just because it is our international obligation to do so, but because it is the right thing to do.

Catering to that many people has not been without its challenges. Having said that, it is a response that we all should be proud of nonetheless. I know I am proud of how so many in my constituency have rallied and responded. Like every other area, in my area hotels and, indeed, an office block have become home to Ukrainians and those applying for international protection. It has not been easy for communities but there have been incredible examples of community integration, volunteerism and assistance. Clondalkin Tidy Towns have a number of new arrivals to the community now volunteering with them regularly. Saggart Village Residents’ Association had a Christmas fair with Ukrainian stalls to help to integrate their culture and traditions into this community beside Citywest. Clondalkin College of Further Education and my local county council libraries ran English-language courses to help people.

Educational welfare officers and principals found school places for children. It is services like that which really are essential. I welcome the €2.7 million allocated to my council under the community recognition fund put in place by the Minister, Deputy Humphreys. I am sure it will be put to good use.

About 800 of the 85,000 people who have arrived here in the last year are in the reception centre in Citywest today. I condemn those who have protested outside that centre and those who are pushing the far-right agenda through racist rhetoric. Since the opening of the Citywest transit hub I have been in direct contact with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and with local gardaí. I have visited the centre and seen at first hand people queueing up with nothing more than a suitcase of belongings. I have seen at first hand the work on the ground by staff from various Departments and from volunteers. I commend them for it. I acknowledge the conditions they are working in and put on record the absolute need for a second reception centre at another location.

More than a third of working-age Ukrainian refugees are now in jobs. They are making their contribution to our economy and society. That is integration. However, it should not stop there. We need more investment, including in areas such as healthcare, and especially mental health and disability services, to ensure that as our population grows our services grow to meet that new demand. We also need clearer lines of communication with communities. Service provision and communication must be our priorities because that is how we build a diverse, inclusive and modern society.

Deputy Paul Donnelly

Ireland has a history of forced emigration through the brutal occupation of our country and the failure of this State to be able to provide work to generations of young men and women. We all know some were welcomed and others were met with signs that said: "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish".

The immigration, refugee and asylum seeker crisis of today is a space we should not be in. The failure to properly accommodate Ukrainian refugees and international protection asylum seekers lies firmly at the door of the Government. Last year the Taoiseach, then Tánaiste, said 200,000 Ukrainian refugees were potentially coming here in 2022. About 70,000 have come for sanctuary and have been hugely welcomed by the people of Ireland. I commend Empower in my constituency, Dublin West, for all the work it has done around integration and supports. However, it has become clear that the Government has utterly failed to deal with even that number. A year down the line, there is still no strategy to deal with this in the short to medium term. There is now panic in the Government that we could have over 11,000 refugees who are currently in hotels left without accommodation in the coming weeks and months. There has been a whole year to plan, organise and ensure we have a plan for refugees, yet the message from the Cabinet meeting was described as grim because there is no place for them. What do we have instead of a well thought-out plan and strategy? We have a Minister publicly writing to those with whom he sits around the Cabinet table every week to beg for help.

We need to address the issue of those seeking international protection and, I hope, deal with some of the misinformation being spread by those who wish to spread fear and hate in our communities. I point people to the recent fact check sheet released by the Irish Refugee Council. It is an excellent point of reference for those who wish to seek the facts. A substantial number of people in our communities are asking legitimate questions about how and where people will be accommodated. What supports are being put in place to support those in buildings? What support is there for communities in which international protection asylum seekers are being placed? How will it impact on health and social provision? How will they get those supports? How will their communities be supported with policing and community safety? These are legitimate questions in areas the Government has failed again and again to deal with. It has failed to properly communicate with communities. To this day, there is no confidence anything will change in the Department. This has allowed lies and misinformation to flourish on social media.

Social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok have failed to uphold what would be seen as decent standards. I appeal to those in my community who have concerns and fears to check out the facts. They should check out what they are being told, who is feeding them these lines and ask in whose interest it is that fear and misinformation be spread. I have reported several threatening videos and posts and not once have they been taken down. These companies have a strange and twisted view of what they call "community standards". It is time to commit to communicating properly with communities and ensuring appropriate accommodation is provided for those who need it. We need to plan in the medium to long term for that accommodation, for supports and wraparound services for those who are seeking asylum and refuge and for those communities that are already under pressure. We must remember a lot of these centres are put in working-class communities that are already under massive pressure. We need a campaign of factual information to be put in place and for social media companies to be held to account for allowing lies, misinformation and threatening videos and posts on their platforms. We have all seen those videos and seen the threats against Teachtaí Dála from across the political spectrum. Those companies must be held to account, in particular.

Deputy Marian Harkin

I want to recognise, insofar as any person not directly affected by war can recognise, the horror and the pain of the loss of family, of friends and of a home; it is your life literally disappearing in front of your very eyes. It is important to say that is the context in which we speak. The challenge facing Ukraine, Europe and Ireland is unprecedented, and that is the right word to use. When we discuss issues in this House it is important that we look at the bigger picture, but equally we must look at the detail. There are difficult, complicated, intractable, awkward issues that need to be managed. We must look at the impact not only on those seeking protection but also on communities where those seeking shelter find a temporary home. It is a huge logistical operation but it is the role of the Government to manage even unprecedented situations.

Our response, while good in some ways, has not been well co-ordinated. I have seen examples of good policy but have equally seen examples of questionable or poor decision-making. I am very clear we should never let the perfect be the enemy of the good but some of what is happening is not good. Looking at accommodation, we still have not caught up on all the offers people have made. I am aware of middlemen going around the country trying to source properties ahead of Government agencies and trying to cream off profits. That must be stopped. I have told accommodation owners not to deal with such individuals but when they are getting the runaround from different State actors they are tempted. My colleague Deputy Fitzmaurice put me in contact with a German company and I spoke to someone there this morning. The company is able to provide 30 units on a site in Ireland every day, five days a week. These are A-rated, fully compliant homes at approximately €100,000 for a three- or four-bedroom home. I understand virtually every country in Europe except Ireland is being supplied by this company. I am aware that nothing is simple but why is this happening? Why are we not taking every opportunity presented to us?

On the other hand, I look at one of my local communities, Rosses Point. It is a small village that largely relies on tourism where the only hotel is now housing approximately 400 Ukrainians. Overnight, tourism business is gone and the population has nearly doubled, yet there is no extra bus service despite consistent calls from the local community. This is where co-ordination is missing. All three Deputies met with business and community representatives twice to try to source some of these extra services, especially transport services. The people attending the meetings were positive. For example, the local branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, RNLI, wants to help out with water safety. People want to do the right thing.

Equally, they are rightly concerned about services and the future of their tourism businesses. That is why, at a national and local level, there needs to be greater co-operation and support. There is no point in saying that Irish people are decent and good. We know that is largely true. The Government, however, has a responsibility to not just pay for accommodation but to provide the extra services needed. In areas like education, for example, the schools, the teachers and the Minister have stepped up. We must see this kind of support across different sectors. Where tourism businesses are being badly affected, we need to look at some kind of compensation package where it can be demonstrated that this is the case.

What I am hearing is that liaison officers are needed for some local communities that are particularly affected, as well as for Ukrainian refugees. What I am hearing is that State support is needed for certain communities so they do not feel abandoned. I accept part of our role as Teachtaí Dála is to help out those communities, but more is needed. It is crucial that the community recognition fund is used for communities and not to provide services that the local authority should provide. We all want this to work. Every one of us knows clear information and specific supports will go a long way.

Deputy Marc MacSharry

I pay tribute to the Minister and his efforts in the impossible situation the country has faced. I also wish to criticise every other member of the Government for throwing him under the bus effectively, because he is not getting the support he requires. Deputy Harkin alluded to this. We have all these committees all over the country, Cabinet sub-committees and local response committees, but these are not being followed up with local resources. If we want the extra bus that Deputy Harkin referred for the schoolchildren in Rosses Point, we could contact Anne Graham. She will tell us that Bus Éireann is a private company, so perhaps we should write to Jim Meade or Stephen Kent or whomever and perhaps they will be able to organise one for us. That is not a joined-up approach and this is a serious problem.

I am not a racist, zealot or xenophobe. I do not support the headers in East Wall and places like that and the types of protest being undertaken there. That does not mean there is not a serious amount of frustration out there, because there is. Outside Dublin, 30% of all tourism accommodation is now devoted to this crisis. We all want to do the best we can for people running for their lives, all of us. We cannot, however, be foolish and stupid in terms of our own capacity. There is no co-ordination at a European level for this crisis. There is no co-ordination in selecting destinations. You do not put people in tents in the rain in Dublin in winter when other member states, which are supposedly standing shoulder to shoulder with us, have a different climate, for example.

We have taken the equivalent of 1.4% of our population in terms of numbers of people running for their lives from Ukraine. I support that but it has not been reciprocated in other countries. Denmark, for example, a country which is comparable to Ireland, has taken a number equivalent to 0.67% of its population, less than half of what we have taken as a percentage of population. Since Christmas, about 5,500 refugees have arrived here, yet only 274 people have arrived in Denmark. Why is this? Does Denmark have a different policy? Does the temporary protection directive apply differently to that country? One of the things we must address is the fact that people are in a position to choose their destination themselves. I reiterate that we want to play our part. It is important that we talk about these issues because one of the problems building frustration is poor communication. The fact is people are not allowed to talk about these issues because otherwise you are beaten to death in the media, being called a zealot and a racist. I am neither. As an Irish person, like all Irish people, I am naturally welcoming and very conscious of our own story historically and the fact that we depended on the welcome of so many countries.

I have done research and while there is a health warning on the information I will provide, because we are not comparing absolutely like with like, the Department and Government need to look at it. We give a refugee in direct provision €38 a week. We give a Ukrainian refugee €230 a week. The corresponding amount in Denmark is €50 and only for the first six months. According to research, and again this needs to be checked, Belgium gives €7.90 per week. As a matter of fact, if I am a Ukrainian and I have a choice of the EU 27 nations, this is a no-brainer. I will want to go to Ireland because it is financially much more beneficial for me to do so. I am not saying that people are sitting down and making economic decisions. They are running for their lives. The figures speak somewhat for themselves, however. I know this is a sensitive and complicated issue but you can see why frustration will build.

Equally, when we are seeking to build and appeal for solidarity, which I want, building modular units to deal with the housing crisis in Sligo exclusively for Ukrainian refugees when there are 1,500 people on the housing list in the county will do nothing to build solidarity. We need to acknowledge some of these points. Deputy Harkin mentioned that there is modular housing available, at what price and how quickly it can be done. We do not have to go to Germany. There is a factory in Lisburn doing it and it will provide us with 100 units per week. Let us do all we can for the Ukrainian crisis but let us not take our own people for fools either. Let us communicate with them and get our European colleagues to face up to the fact that they are not doing as much as Ireland.

Deputy Cormac Devlin

I welcome this debate on the co-ordination of services for people seeking protection in Ireland. It is important to acknowledge how Ireland has benefited from growing diversity over the last two decades in particular. New communities have added to the rich tapestry of Irish culture and Irish life, just as the Irish abroad made huge contributions in the US, Canada, Australia and, of course, in our nearest neighbour, the UK. We should not forget the challenges faced by Irish people heading to the UK and elsewhere during those many decades. I know that volunteers, such as Margaret Brown in my constituency, are working with the Friends of the Forgotten Irish group in the UK to help those who still face challenges to this day in areas including housing and healthcare.

New communities play a critical role in supporting many sectors here, including in our hospitals, caring professions, the construction industry and many other areas, including the service industry. Leaving aside the issues noted concerning the direct provision system, the processing of international protection applicants and the processing of visas for people coming to work in Ireland have been managed reasonably well. In the past year, however, we have seen a massive movement of people. This has been caused, in the main, by the Russian invasion of and subsequent war in Ukraine. The movement and weaponisation of people is a Russian objective. Putin tried to weaponise energy, and failed. He tried to weaponise food, and failed. He continues, though, to weaponise people in an attempt to destabilise Europe and compel EU countries to end their support for an independent Ukraine.

It is notable that some speakers failed to acknowledge the cause of this crisis and the same speakers present simple solutions to the complex issues we face. Playing politics with the issue is extremely unhelpful and plays into the Russian agenda. There should be a national effort to deal with this crisis. Since 24 February 2022, almost 75,000 people have come to Ireland, with more than 50,000 people from Ukraine fleeing Russia's invasion. The Government and, more importantly, officials on the front line have made massive efforts to deal with this crisis. Of course, there are significant issues and many of them have been aired today. We must also acknowledge some successes along the way, particularly in our education system. Teachers and school communities across Ireland have made enormous efforts to accommodate children in the education system. I put this on the record, along with our appreciation. Equally, the hospitality sector deserves great credit for stepping up. We know there are challenges there with payment and that issue has been articulated today and at other times. That needs to be resolved urgently.

Communities across Ireland have made massive efforts to make people welcome here.

In my constituency in Dún Laoghaire there are several hundred host families. Communities have come together, as have religious organisations, to try to integrate and welcome new arrivals into the local area. That is very welcome and has been replicated right across the country.

However, many communities that we have seen protest - although not all - have legitimate concerns. These concerns have been acknowledged today and the underlying issues must be dealt with quickly. There are areas where service providers can do better. We have heard about that as well. Communications, for instance, from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and others need to improve. I hope the Minister will note that feedback. Security at reception centres also needs to improve. Resources must be provided to expand healthcare and community services. I welcome the details of funding announced today, which will be on top of the €50 million committed to direct support under the community recognition fund.

Last week, I raised the need to provide additional resources to speed up the processing of asylum applications. I welcome the confirmation from the Minister for Justice today that claims will be processed within three months, rather than the 18 months to two years it took previously. It is important to note that the asylum process includes robust checks on all applicants, fingerprinting, cross-checking against international databases and due process. Where applicants are successful, Ireland must welcome them. We have heard our international obligations and we have signed up to them. Nobody disputes that. Equally, however, if somebody is refused, there is a process there for that too. Many times that involves a return back to their home country.

My colleagues, such as Deputy Robert Troy, noted the need for an improved system to support the immigration of the skilled people we need to work in critical areas such as healthcare, transport and construction. We need to make greater progress on that. I know that does not fit squarely into the Minister's Department but where people are willing and able to work and have great qualifications, and where we have skill shortages here, we need to facilitate that at a greater pace than we are doing.

There is no doubt that the next 12 to 18 months will be extremely challenging but we will work together right across the House. If Deputies and parties are willing to work together, in a national effort, we can get through this as we have done. We have accommodated so many people in so many different areas and sectors. It can be done. There is a will and if there is co-operation across the Government and unity of purpose with the Government, that will assist.

Deputy Catherine Connolly

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate. It is notable that of all the senior Ministers who spoke earlier, the only written speech that was circulated was from the Taoiseach. That is significant for such a serious topic. I totally agree with what the Taoiseach said towards the end of his speech:

We should all stand together against fear, hate and conspiracy theories. We should do so on a non-partisan and non-ideological basis, a nation standing together against racism.

I absolutely agree with him. However, he gives double messages, as all the senior Ministers have given. He said: "As Taoiseach, I believe we should welcome and protect those who come to these shores legitimately [because that is the best] way of honouring our national story". What does that mean? What does "legitimately" mean? My understanding is that people are entitled to come here to seek asylum and there is a process. I will come back to that. He made another statement:

It means being firm with those who come here with a false story or under false pretences. Criminal gangs should never decide who enters our country. That is for us to decide, not human traffickers.

A double message is being given here. I pay tribute to the work of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. He has done his best in a very difficult situation, with over 70,000 people arriving from Ukraine, not to mention the other countries. I thank him for his work but I do not think there has been a co-ordinated response. That captures the double-speak that is coming out. The Government keeps telling us that the people on this side of the House, supposedly on the left, are adding to the fear but quite the opposite is happening. There is an onus on the Government to stop the use of this language. The Minister has not used it but he is in government with those who have used it. It is nothing short of shocking.

The Irish Refugee Council has shared its concerns in this regard. It has written to the Government and pointed out its concerns to us. On the term "legitimate", it tells us that somebody arriving without a legitimate basis has to be processed. The Government is setting up false arguments and false fears on top of the most serious problems relating to housing and health. We have spoken about this repeatedly from the first day I came into the Dáil in February 2016. Housing was a major issue then. Now on top of that we are allowing for division with some people saying: "they get everything". Let me look at that claim. This has already been referred to by a Sinn Féin Deputy and the Irish Refugee Council has given out the facts and figures. An asylum seeker has no entitlement to social housing or to be on the social housing waiting list. An asylum seeker has no entitlement to children's allowance. It has gone through all the myths that have been perpetuated to show they are not accurate. I am glad the Minister is nodding his head but unfortunately, those above him are not nodding their heads. They are giving mixed messages. I cannot say it often enough. What is happening here is dangerous. There are genuine concerns on the ground about the housing crisis and health. I was sickened to my core to hear a group of people shouting: "out, out, out" at a direct provision centre. That anger should be directed at the Government if people are unhappy with it, which I am, but they should not be shouting: "no, no, no" outside such places.

I have had the privilege of going to Canada on a regular basis as I have family over there. My older brother never tires of telling me that back in Black '47, which might appear a long time ago but is still very much in our heads, Toronto had 20,000 people. Into the shores of the lake came 38,560 Irish people, almost double the population of Toronto. It was the worst year for Irish people and they were welcomed. We are here now with a background of direct provision and we have a two-tier system. The Minister knows that and he justifies it by saying it is an EU directive. Somebody from Ukraine does not have to go through the same process as others.

Of course the war is deplorable. I have deplored it on record and I am not going to waste my valuable few minutes on it. Ireland has a different role here. We are a neutral country. We should give all the humanitarian help we can but we are a neutral country and not one Government speaker spoke today about the need to use our voice to stop this mad war. It is just utterly mad. Now on top of that we have a divisive policy that says: "Ukrainian refugees good, give them every possible help" but: "Refugees or asylum seekers from anywhere else, put them through the wringer". That is what we are doing. The Minister knows we are doing that. We are doing it on the basis of all his good work.

We had the White Paper and prior to that we had the Catherine Day report. Prior to that, we had the McMahon report. Bryan McMahon pointed out that the biggest problem among many problems at that time, and it was a moderate report, was the failure to process applications quickly. Here we are, 22 years after direct provision was established, and we are still dividing and conquering and othering people in direct provision, making it extremely difficult for them and allowing myths to develop. I find it deplorable. Of course, direct provision cannot end now. The biggest problem I had with the report from Catherine Day and the White Paper was the failure to recognise, well before the Ukrainian war, that there was a housing crisis. How were we going to end direct provision if they did not recognise that problem? I am one of the advocates for ending direct provision. It is inhuman and wrong.

The White Paper acknowledged that direct provision failed to respect dignity and human rights. We are in agreement about this so let us stop the divisive politics. Let us treat all asylum seekers the same, whether they are from Somalia, Yemen or Afghanistan. Let us treat them the same. Let us rise to our obligations. Equally, let us use our voice to get peace and to deplore this war because at some stage Ukraine and Russia have to negotiate. We have a particular, significant and important role as a neutral country - one of the few left. I make no apology for not joining the consensus on war. I will not do it. I will not do it ever.

Deputy Joan Collins

I concur with what my colleague, Deputy Connolly, has just said, that as a neutral country we should be calling for peace at every step of the way and providing humanitarian support.

I wish to make a couple of points in the three minutes available to me. For years, the Opposition has called for changes to the asylum process in this country, including when the Green Party was in opposition. The direct provision system is a national disgrace and a national embarrassment. It was set up to discourage people seeking international protection in Ireland by creating a service that was completely unfit for purpose. It was set up by the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, now Senator McDowell, when he was a member of the Progressive Democrats.

Now we see people fleeing war, persecution and disaster. Some people find themselves in unsuitable and unsafe accommodation or they are left to sleep on the streets and are totally exposed to the hate being whipped up by the far right. The problems we currently have in the asylum-seeking process are a result of the intentional creation of a system that was never supposed to work in the first place. People are not stupid. They can see this system is not working, and they are rightly worried that the Government will again put the cost of its own failures on their communities. Communities all over the country have been welcoming refugees, but they are worried after having been battered for years and years by cuts, austerity and neglect. The problem is there has been little or no consultation and not enough information for communities. This has created a vacuum that has been quickly filled by misinformation pushed by a small minority that wants to spread lies and hate. People need proper reassurance that they will receive real funding and supports to prevent further stresses on their already neglected and underfunded communities. People must be told when those supports will be put in place and what they will be. They need to know their lives will not get worse.

I referred to consultation. The Minister partly clarified what happened in Walkinstown recently. We contacted the Minister after hearing rumours that refugees were being moved into a centre. The Department was not aware of it. We went further and found out who the developer was and we got clarification that he was dealing directly with IPAS to house refugees. The Department only found out after he had contacted IPAS. In the intervening 24 to 36 hours people on the right were able to jump into the vacuum and create a situation by saying men of an age to fight would be moved into the centre and that would create a lot of problems. The Government must get on top of this. We must know where Ukrainians and other refugees are going so we can work with communities to welcome them.

The lies of the far right give direct cover to the Government. The far right is saying there is no housing crisis, no health crisis, no cost-of-living crisis, no need to tax the rich or blame the Government's failed policies - it just blames migrants and refugees. The Government wants to distract us from its own failings and the far right wants to distract us from the real problems in this country and blame the disadvantaged and the marginalised.

I will be at the Ireland for All solidarity march this Saturday to push for housing for all, healthcare for all and services for all, with trade unions, communities, the Travelling community and individuals.

Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Deputy Roderic O'Gorman)

I want to begin by setting the context in which we are having this debate. As we sit here this evening, Ireland is in the midst of the greatest humanitarian effort in the history of the State. More than 70,000 people have fled here from a war in Europe: a war inflicted on a country that did not seek it, and that has killed more than 7,000 civilians. It is the biggest displacement of people on the Continent since the Second World War.

Thousands of people, mostly women and children, have fled here to seek safety, and ensure they can have a future for themselves and their children. At the same time, there is conflict and persecution in other places around the world: in Afghanistan, in Iran, in parts of north Africa and in the Middle East. People flee their country because of their political beliefs or religious beliefs, or they face persecution because of who they are. Often, people fleeing here are fleeing for their very lives. They are coming here seeking shelter and safety.

Since the beginning of 2022, marking both the ending of Covid restrictions and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we have seen - relative to previous years - a significant increase in the number of people fleeing here. More than 70,000 people have fled the war in Ukraine, alongside 15,000 new international protection applicants. In the space of 11 months, we have provided accommodation to 78,000 people, which is equivalent to the population of Galway city. We have done this at a time of significant accommodation challenges, something many Deputies have spoken about.

This is the largest humanitarian response in the history of the State. My Department has the responsibility to lead on the immediate accommodation needs of this response. We established a Ukraine unit within my Department, comprising 150 staff, and expanded the International Protection Accommodation Service.

The Department now has more than 700 accommodation contracts. Around a quarter of the hotel beds in the country have been contracted. For the first time, we will see the roll-out of modular units for 2,000 people, with the first of the units due for occupation in the coming weeks. We have made use of barracks, offices, student accommodation and sports grounds. Every week, we are accommodating hundreds of additional people.

There has been a response over the last year across the apparatus of the State - from my own Department to the Departments of Social Protection, Justice and Education, and through agencies like Tusla and HSE. Local authorities have stood up rest centres for those fleeing here from Ukraine. The Department of Defence has provided multiple sites for accommodation, both for people from Ukraine and those in the international protection system. The OPW is progressing the delivery of modular units. The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, sports organisations and the Department of Education have all provided buildings for short-term use. The Department of Housing is working with local authorities on the new vacant homes programme and undertaking the refurbishment of State-owned institutional buildings.

Importantly, alongside the response from the State, Irish society has also generously responded. Across the country, we have seen welcomes extended to new arrivals. Communities have rallied around to support new arrivals in their cities, towns and villages. Thousands of people have opened their homes to those fleeing the war. Almost 7,000 people are now in pledged accommodation around the country.

Through the efforts of local volunteers, community workers, public bodies and private sector contributions, many arrivals are being supported with basic needs such as clothing, access to the Internet, transport, English-language classes and information on how to access local services such as childcare, schools and healthcare.

We have heard throughout this debate that those who have fled here are learning alongside our children in schools. They are working with us and they are becoming valued members of the community and making their own contribution. This has been a monumental intergenerational effort, and in the midst of these difficult days I believe it is important that we do not forget that fact. Yet, over the past six months, we have seen an insidious thread of racism, xenophobia and fearmongering emerge. We have seen protests outside people's homes. We have also seen protests against vulnerable children, where those children are too terrified to look outside their own window. Misinformation and outright lies have been spread on social media and in communities across the country. There has been a vilification of men in particular, who have come here seeking international protection. Some of these men have been tortured and exploited, and they have come here seeking refuge. They have been denigrated as something other, something to be feared.

We are in the midst of the greatest humanitarian effort in the history of the State, and it is up to us to choose who we are, and how we respond. How do we want history to remember our State and our people in this moment? I believe the vast majority of Irish people want to see us respond to what is a humanitarian crisis in Europe and beyond. They do not want to see their country walk off the pitch when challenged. I believe we should be firm in our defence of safety and compassion and in the concept of international protection.

International protection means fairly and humanely examining a claim for asylum; sheltering and supporting people while that claim is assessed; and giving people the right to stay here in safety where it is adjudicated that they need it. We should not be ashamed of doing that or shy away from it. That too, means that some people will not be successful in their applications and will have to return to their home countries. However, we should not vilify those people because with our deep history of emigration in this country, we have an instinctive understanding of those who leave their own country to seek to make a better life for themselves elsewhere. Not one Irish person listening to me does not have a relative who has left at some point. That is true for all of us in this House and in this country. We must remember that everyone has someone who has gone away, left this country - often men - to make a better life abroad. It cannot become the norm that another person's permission is required to provide basic shelter to any human being, whether from Ireland or from abroad.

I have always believed that respect for human rights and an understanding of the plight of people in need is a key mark of Irishness. We should be proud of that and we need to sustain it, when it is under attack; it is under attack from certain quarters right now. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and I are engaging with colleagues in government to ensure we can build positive linkages between communities and new arrivals. Doing so, in this time of acute crisis, where we have to move rapidly, is challenging, but it can and will be done.

Despite our success in accommodating the 75,000 people who have fled here, we face significant and immediate challenges. As arrivals continue, our ability to contract further serviced accommodation is reducing. In addition, we are facing the loss of significant number of international protection beds by the end of April. Over the past year, we have used student accommodation provided by higher education, school buildings from the Department of Education, sports facilities from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, and work on sites for rapid build with the Office of Public Works, OPW. However, I cannot accept a situation, whatever the context, where international protection applicants are going without accommodation.

We have to do more. The State must do more. My Department can and will do more to develop further accommodation options, including building and buying properties for international protection applicants. I will continue to work with colleagues across Government and throughout our State agencies to do more, supporting this effort with further accommodation options, meeting the very substantial challenges we face. We have to expedite the refurbishment of properties. We have to do more at moving those with status out of international protection accommodation and allow them to live within the wider community and encourage those who have fled here from Ukraine into other forms of accommodation.

I will close by thanking Deputies for their contributions this evening, many of which have been heartfelt and have arisen from their own experiences in their communities in responding to this humanitarian crisis. I also thank the Deputies for their many individual engagements with me on these issues over the past year. Many members have been in touch with me and my office, in support of the accommodation efforts since the outbreak of war in Ukraine. That constructive engagement is always a considerable help to me and to those fleeing here. I take the opportunity to acknowledge that many people in these Houses have shown real leadership in their communities and, in certain cases, at some cost to those Deputies and Senators. It is important we say that.

This is the largest humanitarian effort in the history of the State. It is challenging and will continue to be challenging. However, both the State and the Irish people have the capacity, compassion and resources to respond to this challenge, to make ourselves proud of this response and to look back in future years and know that, when challenged, we did all that we could and that Ireland played its part.