Accommodation for International Protection Applicants: Motion [Private Members]

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

expresses concern that:

— a humanitarian and public health crisis is intensifying because of the failure of the Government to provide accommodation to asylum seekers;

— there are now more than 1,200 international protection applicants without accommodation in Ireland;

— hundreds of international protection applicants are sleeping in approximately 150 tents around Mount Street in central Dublin;

— there are no toilets, no running water and no sanitation facilities at this tent encampment on Mount Street;

— there have been reports of cases of skin disease and respiratory disease among the men living rough in tents;

— the men sleeping rough are being left in increasingly unsanitary and dangerous conditions, at risk of severe weather and violent attack;

— tents at the same location were set alight in a violent and racist arson attack in 2023;

— in a letter to the Irish Times on 13th March, 2024, infectious diseases registrar Dr Ralph Hurley O'Dwyer said that in recent weeks he has "looked after multiple young men, international protection applicants, hospitalised with serious medical conditions as a result of sleeping outside in the cold";

— Dr Hurley O'Dwyer said "the management of these conditions requires lengthy, costly hospital stays"; and

— on 14th March, 2024, Dr Angy Skuse, Medical Director of Safetynet Primary Care, told RTÉ the conditions on Mount Street were "inhumane" and said she had treated people at the site with multiple serious health issues;

notes that:

— on 18th February, 2024, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth confirmed to RTÉ that there were 2,151 vacant bed spaces in International Protection Accommodation and 2,801 vacant bed spaces in accommodation contracted for Ukrainians;

— on 14th March, 2024, the Department confirmed to the Irish Times that an audit of emergency accommodation capacity had found about 500 extra beds; and

— the Department also revealed there were about 2,500 "potential vacancies" among beds contracted for Ukrainians;

further notes that:

— in February 2021, the Government published a White Paper to End Direct Provision and to Establish a New International Protection Support Service, which was informed by the work of the Advisory Group on the Provision of Support including Accommodation to Persons in the International Protection process that was chaired by Dr Catherine Day, which recommended providing six State-run reception and integration centres;

— in July 2023, Dr Day and the Advisory Group published an updated report advising of changes required since the publication of the 2021 White Paper entitled "Report No. 2 from the External Advisory Group on Ending Direct Provision", and stated six reception centres should urgently be provided;

— in the updated paper, Dr Day said three centres should be delivered by the end of 2023 and a further three by the end of 2024;

— none of these State-run reception and integration centres have yet been provided; and

— there have been media reports that the Government may defer identifying locations for these centres until after the local elections in June 2024;

agrees that:

— the State has domestic and European Union (EU) law obligations to provide "material reception conditions" for asylum seekers;

— material reception conditions include the basic needs of accommodation, food, clothing and access to personal hygiene facilities;

— in April 2023, the High Court found the State's failure to provide these material reception conditions, to an international protection applicant, was unlawful;

— in December 2023, the High Court again found the State had a clear duty to provide material reception conditions; and

— in his judgment, in December 2023, Mr Justice Ferriter said:

"[A]s a matter of EU law (as transposed into Irish law) the State remains under a continuing, mandatory obligation to provide international protection applicants with basic needs including accommodation on an uninterrupted basis from the point at which qualifying persons apply for international protection"; and

calls on the Government to:

— agree that its failure to provide material reception conditions to international protection applicants is unlawful;

— publish its audit of International Protection Accommodation Services and Ukrainian accommodation, identifying locations where beds are vacant, how long they have been vacant and the reason for the vacancy;

— explain why an audit of vacant beds was only completed in mid-March, when the State has been failing in its duty to provide accommodation for many months;

— publish the revised White Paper the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is working on which details its short-, medium- and long-term plan to deal with accommodation for asylum seekers;

— expedite plans to provide six State-run reception and integration centres;

— ensure the international protection system is adequately resourced so applicants receive decisions in a timely and efficient manner; and

— ensure there are adequate procurement controls and enhanced transparency when contracts for State-funded accommodation for asylum seekers are being awarded.

Yesterday and today the focus of the Dáil has clearly been elsewhere. However, I really want to use the next two hours to bring it back to exactly where it needs to be. It is not in this Dáil Chamber but five minutes away on Mount Street, where scores of asylum seekers are again sleeping rough right in front of the International Protection Office. This is what can only be described as a dystopian illustration of where our State is going and, unfortunately, where it is at the moment By the time the Dáil returns after the Easter recess their numbers will undoubtedly have grown. People coming to this country seeking safety from persecution are sleeping rough with no running water, sanitation or toilet facilities and are at risk of violence.

These are human beings and oftentimes that is lost in the discussion, the debate and the narrative we hear in this Chamber, on our airwaves, on social media, and unfortunately within Government policy itself. They are human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and the Government has repeatedly failed to do that. I welcome the fact the Minister will not oppose this motion but I find that interesting because the first point of our motion calls for the Government to "agree that its failure to provide material reception conditions to international protection applicants is unlawful".

Effectively, the Government is putting its hands up today and saying that how it has been treating these people is unlawful. I will be really interested to hear the Minister's statement on that matter because I do not know whether I have ever come across that instance within the Dáil. Not only do I want a statement from the Minister I also want action and to hear what measures he will put in place.

There can really be no confusion about Government policy on this matter. Offering asylum seekers basic accommodation is not optional. It is not some gift the Government can decide to withhold. It is the law. The Government is in continuing and wilful breach of the law and has actually agreed in that regard. Under EU and domestic law the State has an obligation to provide material reception conditions for asylum seekers. Material reception conditions include meeting the basic needs, such as accommodation, food, clothing and access to personal hygiene facilities. The High Court has already ruled on this matter twice. In April 2023 - because this is an issue that has persisted for more than a year - the High Court found that the State's failure to provide material reception conditions to an international protection applicant was unlawful. Again, last December the High Court reiterated that the State has a clear duty to provide material reception conditions. Mr. Justice Ferriter said:

...as a matter of EU law ... the State remains under a continuing, mandatory obligation to provide international protection applicants with basic needs including accommodation on an uninterrupted basis from the point at which qualifying persons apply for international protection.

"Accommodation on an uninterrupted basis" really could not be any clearer. What has the Government continued to do? It has told asylum seekers there is no room at the inn and offered them an extra €75 in lieu of accommodation. This does not satisfy the State's clear legal and moral obligations to these vulnerable asylum seekers. It comes nowhere close and the Minister knows that. Unfortunately, that is why I have said - and will repeat - that I believe the policy of this Government, the Minister and his Department is to use those individuals suffering and being treated absolutely diabolically by this State on Mount Street and elsewhere across the country as a warning, symbol and sign to people who want to come here and who need to come here to seek refuge. The Government is saying to them to not come here because we have nowhere to put them. There can be no other logical answer to that. Today, I really hope the Minister will stand there and tell me how I am wrong because it would really break my heart to think we live in a country where that is a defined Government policy. I can see no other explanation.

The Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, has repeatedly said in the media that there are issues with accommodation and that he hopes anyone who is considering coming to Ireland takes that into consideration and does not come here because of the accommodation pressures we are facing. He has said it repeatedly in the media and in the Dáil. Yet, we also have been told that there are beds.

While the Government continues to state that there are no new beds, Laura Fletcher of RTÉ has numbers from the Department that clearly outline there are 2,180 empty beds within the IPAS system. I hope the Minister will clarify that today because it has been put on the record a number of times and I have not heard any clarifying statements from the Minister. He has clarified the position on accommodation for Ukrainians and he conducted an audit of accommodation for Ukrainians and identified some additional spaces, but I have not heard any comment or discussion about an audit of IPAS accommodation. If he has those figures, I would appreciate it if he would give them to us.

The Government needs to be transparent in this regard. If the State and the public purse are paying for beds to lie empty while we had men whose tents were collapsing under the snow, and who had to use the streets and paths to go to the toilet, with children also involved in that, the Minister needs to tell us why. He needs to tell us exactly how many there are and why those decisions are being made. That is the least we should expect from the him today.

When he came into government, his promise and commitment was to get rid of direct provision and it is a far fall from that ideology to where we are today. I understand there have been challenges and I know it has been hard, but those men and anyone who is coming here to seek refuge have been failed badly by the Government. Given the Minister has acknowledged that what he has been doing is unlawful and given he is not opposing our motion, I hope he will finally say that he got it wrong and tell us how he is going to make it right. I do not believe anyone in this country, or at least the absolute majority, believes it is okay to leave people on the side of the road without the supports they need, no matter where they are from. I went to Sydney shortly after the Olympics. At that stage, essentially, the government there had made a decision to sweep all the homeless people off the streets and hide them in advance of the Olympics so the eyes of the world did not have to be subjected to that. Hand on heart, I never thought we would reach that day but, unfortunately, I think we have. I hope the Minister will tell us exactly what he is going to do.

The questions that we need to have answered today are as follows: will the Minister publish the audit of IPAS and Ukrainian asylum seeker beds? Will he tell us where they are and why they are empty? Will he tell us when he is going to establish the six reception centres? When will he bring to Cabinet the revised White Paper? What is his plan?

It is clear that, as a wealthy country in Europe, we will always have immigration and people will seek refuge here. That is not going to lessen or go away. We need a government that is capable of managing it, and in a humane way, but that has not happened to date. I hope the Minister's response will outline all of those measures and address all the issues. What we do not want is for the shameful treatment of these vulnerable international protection applicants to continue to be a stain on this Government, one that, unfortunately, could become an indelible mark, and one that, as a state, we will have as a reminder of how we failed people who needed our assistance.

Deputy Holly Cairns

I thank my colleague, Deputy Whitmore, for her work on the motion and this issue. The desperate situation on Mount Street has been a growing humanitarian crisis for months, with hundreds of men and boys sleeping in the cold in completely unsanitary conditions, which has led to the spread of disease in recent weeks. Local activist groups and volunteers have been working tirelessly to help these men and to provide food, warm clothes and blankets. Where was the Department? Where was the emergency response? Where was the urgency that this crisis required? Why was it only in the past week that a capacity review was undertaken to find the number of vacant beds available for asylum seekers? How can the Minister stand over that, when more than 1,000 people have been sleeping rough in sub-zero temperatures, fending for themselves on the streets of Dublin? The Government should be ashamed of itself.

Right when we think the situation has reached rock bottom and the Department’s treatment of these people could not get any worse, what happens? Ahead of St. Patrick's Day, the hundreds of people on Mount Street are shuffled onto buses to be transported to new accommodation, with no transparency on where they were going or what to expect. This was clearly giving these people the impression and the hope that things were going to get better. The reality of the situation in Crooksling was stark. The best that the Government could apparently provide them with was more tents, isolated in the middle of nowhere, far from the volunteers who supported and protected them, and left with a gang of balaclava-wearing people shouting racist abuse outside the gate.

It should not require much critical thinking from the Government to realise that isolating people from their limited support base will not make them safer. For the Government to defend the conditions in Crooksling by saying that access to health services and transport links to Dublin are to be put in place in the future is laughable. Why on earth was that not done before it bussed hundreds of medically and physically vulnerable people to an isolated area? It is nothing short of negligent. The Minister needs to listen to the people he sent there - to the people who, within a number of hours, were walking 19 km back to Mount Street, back to an area with no sanitation or security. Why? It was because, ultimately, they felt it was safer than the accommodation he had provided.

No one is saying that this is easy or that the war in Ukraine did not put an incredible level of pressure on the international protection system. However, instead of acting on the recommendations of the Catherine Day report after the fact, instead of immediately starting work on six State reception centres and 700 modular homes, the Government’s response has been shambolic, with no sign of medium- or long-term planning. If the Government had followed the recommendations of the report, the sixth reception centre would be delivered this year. Not only are we nowhere near having even one, but the Government is refusing to disclose the location of them until after the local elections. It is playing politics with people's dignity, health and fundamental human rights, and everybody can see it for what it is. It is a complete and utter disgrace.

Not only does the Government seem to be reluctant or incapable of delivering the much-needed reception centres, but it also seems there is available accommodation it is just not using. In a parliamentary question response to me yesterday, the Minister stated there were 3,100 potential vacancies within the accommodation centres contracted for Ukrainians, with 1,300 of them appearing to be usable. It is not good enough that people are left in the cold, being physically and verbally abused while these beds lie empty, and all because the Department does not seem to have bothered to even check capacity until mid-March.

The increase in the number of asylum seekers is often phrased as a “crisis” but that is not helpful. The reality is that there will always be wars and displacement and there will always be people fleeing persecution or seeking a better life. People have a right to seek protection here and we have a legal obligation to provide it. As an economically successful and safe country, Ireland will be a destination for people. Ireland needs to be able to handle this number. What we need is a coherent plan from the Government on this issue, and we need it quickly.

Deputy Catherine Murphy

In the past week, when the IP applicants who were camped out on Mount Street - some still are - were bussed to Crooksling, the optics were that they were being hidden from international eyes for the St. Patrick’s Day festival. It is an appalling way to treat human beings.

The direct provision system, which was to be phased out, is overwhelmed and cannot cope with the new intake of over 5,500 people who have been through the immigration system and have the right to remain. The problem is that there is nowhere for them to move on to.

At the centre of this is the housing crisis. We have repeatedly called for an all-of-government approach. This would need a plan and would mean that, instead of outsourcing the issue to the private sector and throwing buckets of money at what has now become a crisis, the Government would have to govern. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth was given a one-dimensional task but has been overwhelmed. It is as if the coalition Government is risk averse and trying to compartmentalise the issue when it is in fact multifaceted.

We seem to be in a permanent state of emergency. That emergency is not of the making of those who have fled the war in Ukraine or who have applied for international protection. The use of commercial buildings such as hotels or disused industrial buildings, which would otherwise not be used for housing, is where the focus has been in terms of the accommodation of international protection applicants and Ukrainian refugees, with the Department issuing calls for expressions of interest for private sector accommodation. Normal planning rules have been suspended or relaxed, as have normal procurement processes, such as public tenders. There is a feeling that money is being thrown at the issue without any of the normal checks and balances.

I was informed at a recent public accounts committee meeting that providers had to be tax compliant. When I pressed for information on what other controls were required, that seemed to be it. One logical conclusion from this is that someone with a criminal background who is tax compliant can qualify. Some of those who have won tenders do not appear to be people of means. There are legitimate questions about where the money used by those who purchased the buildings in the first place came from. Due to a European court judgment and the heavy-handed way it was applied here, it is now impossible to find out who the beneficial owners of some of these companies are. Even a cursory glance shows that there are companies within companies in a web that is impossible to untangle. We have no way of knowing where the money is coming from or who is financially benefiting from these contracts. In some cases, they are benefiting from multiple contracts. This matters. The fact that the departmental process is so internalised and secretive means that we do not know how this concern is being handled. This is not to say that most providers are not completely legitimate, but vast sums of money are being made.

Vulnerable people are at the centre of this. There is no doubt that our contribution to the war on Ukraine is a humanitarian one, and primarily involves taking in displaced people. There is no doubt that this will cost money, and I accept that. There is no doubt that we have international obligations when it comes to international protection applicants. That will also cost money, and I accept that as well. However, none of this means that we should dispense with basics like value for money, good controls, good governance and our humanitarian obligations. This is an internal process used by the Department. It is not just an issue of communication. Rather, it is about a lack of any kind of cross-government plan, robust process or procurement controls that involve control of costs, and as long as we accept this from the Government, we will get more of the same.

What we are looking at is a symptom of something that is much bigger, namely, the housing crisis and the crisis of inadequate public services. Where is the plan? I have seen people who do not have means but who have been able to buy a building for €1.2 million and then get €250,000 per month to run it. Why are we not considering buying places ourselves and then managing them instead of throwing them out to be mismanaged, as has happened in some cases? There is a lack of any kind of cross-government plan. From the word "Go", we have been calling for such a plan. There must be a whole-of-government approach. It cannot be compartmentalised into the Minister's Department.

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

Ireland has long stood by the principle in international and European law that those who need to seek refuge must be afforded the right to do so humanely, fairly and according to the rules of the international system that we strive to uphold. Recent years have seen an unprecedented combination of contributory factors — some one-off, others due to fundamental shifts in migration patterns over the longer term. Between those fleeing the war in Ukraine and the increasing numbers of people seeking international protection in Ireland, the State has mobilised to provide accommodation to over 100,000 additional people in the past 24 months.

The challenges facing us in this regard are increasing. January and February saw the highest number of monthly international protection applicants on record. As many people now claim international protection in six weeks as did annually prior to Covid. At the same time, accommodation contracted by my Department faces opposition. Sometimes, that is protest. Sometimes, it is the blocking of access. Sometimes, it goes as far as acts of arson. All of this acts to further restrict the available pipeline of accommodation.

These trends and challenges are not unique to Ireland. Across Europe, we can see other countries trying to grapple with migration. After many years of receiving comparatively few international protection applicants, the past two years have seen Ireland move in line with what other European countries are receiving per capita.

I wish to be clear, in that the right to claim international protection is a human right. A person who comes here has a right to make an application for protection and to make his or her case. This is fundamentally a humane act and we must be proud as a country of being able to provide that right.

The old system by which we processed individuals' international protection claims and accommodated people while their claims were being adjudicated on is no longer fit for purpose. That is why the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and I have been working to reform the process. It will be on this basis that I will take the new approach to the provision of accommodation to the Cabinet next week.

I wish to speak specifically about the situation on Mount Street and the move to Crooksling on Saturday. Since last December, the State has been unable to provide accommodation to all male international protection applicants. As everyone knows, this challenge is becoming increasingly difficult. Although the majority of those who have not been offered accommodation are not rough sleeping, a growing number have been rough sleeping recently, with many congregating at the International Protection Office on Mount Street. The situation there is entirely unacceptable and has been worsening in recent weeks. This was rightly highlighted by many Oireachtas Members and councillors, as well as by NGOs that I engaged with directly and that provide direct support at Mount Street. As a result, I instructed my officials to examine what emergency, immediate measures could be put in place to offer at least 24-hour security along with access to toilet and shower facilities, food and health services, working in the absence of enough available beds coming through for adult males in particular.

The site at Crooksling was immediately available, as it is already State owned, has a full suite of security measures in place and is adjacent to public transport in and out of Dublin. The suggestion that the move to Crooksling was in any way linked to St. Patrick's Day is entirely wrong. The additional facilities at Crooksling became operational last Saturday. As soon as the site was ready to receive international protection applicants, I sought to have them moved there. Basic as it is, the availability of toilets, showers, regular meals and access to healthcare and other services in a secure and protected location is a far better situation than the one that exists on Mount Street. My sole focus was on ensuring a safe, secure and serviced sited for those who were unaccommodated. In a crisis situation like this, nobody is thinking of the date, nobody is thinking of visuals.

I have to address some of the rampant misinformation that was shared over the weekend. The shared photo of a filthy toilet, purporting to show the only toilet on the site, was untrue. The suggestion that there were no indoors areas for those staying there was not true. The suggestion that there was no food available on Saturday was not true. Crooksling has an indoor area and facilities to charge phones, catered food is available, and there are washing machines, 15 toilets, six showers and a full suite of security. Additional facilities, such as an on-site kitchen, are being provided now. Services are being provided from this weekend, including health services and access to other social services.

Again, the site at Crooksling is basic but it is an improvement on the unacceptable situation at Mount Street. I understand the frustration felt by those who have come to Ireland seeking shelter and I accept that we are failing to meet their basic needs but my Department, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Brien, and I are working as hard as we can to address the situation.

Three years ago, we set out the White Paper to end direct provision, a policy designed around 3,500 people seeking international protection each year. The landscape has changed radically since then, with an additional 100,000 people seeking different types of protection here in the intervening period. These numbers were unimaginable in early 2021. The challenges facing us at the moment are a function of the system we operate, and as that system has grown, it has become harder to reform. It is clear to me and colleagues across the Government that the scale of the challenge now demands a response of similar scale. I will be bringing the new accommodation strategy to Cabinet next week. That strategy will set out the measures to activate additional resources of the State to bring this situation under control. In the broadest sense, it will be about moving away from the current over-reliance on private providers for accommodation towards ensuring there is a stock of State-owned accommodation. It will ensure better quality accommodation, better control of the accommodation pipeline, better value for the taxpayer and, crucially, some choice over the location of accommodation. It will also include immediate measures to address the current crisis which, if implemented, can deliver additional accommodation within months. It will aim to give the State greater management over the stock of international protection accommodation in terms of location, distribution, costs, delivery of services and consideration of impact on communities. Finalising this policy has taken longer than I would have liked but I am confident it will take us out of the current unacceptable situation.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy, please.

Deputy Roderic O'Gorman

We have major challenges on the accommodation front and it is not helpful when people pretend there are easy solutions to address this. There are no easy solutions; if there were, there would not be people left unaccommodated right now.

I want to thank, as I always do when we discuss migration, the many Deputies in government and opposition, both party members and Independents, who work closely with me, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Brien, and my Department to support the delivery of much-needed additional accommodation across the country. I know that across much of this House there is a strong desire to address this situation and for Ireland to meet its international requirements. I want to be clear that it is in no way acceptable to me or my Department that people remain unaccommodated. Every effort is being made by my Department to support those who are coming to this country to claim international protection. The best way we can change the situation is through an accommodation strategy that moves our reliance from the private sector to having a core of State-owned accommodation and we will set this out in detail next week.

Deputy Gary Gannon

When I sat down this morning to prepare my words and think about what I was going to offer to this debate today, I thought about some of the images from last week of people in our international protection system being bussed to Crooksling and then walking back, of the testimony from their advocates and some of the conversations I had with some of those sleeping in tents over the last number of months and I could not step away from the question of when we became so cruel. It is not my intention to personalise this issue or to lay the blame squarely at the Minister's feet. Indeed, it is the Minister's colleagues in government who are using him to spare their own blushes, not the Social Democrats.

For over two years, the Social Democrats have called for an all-of-government approach. It was my party that raised in the Dáil the Minister's own letter to his Cabinet colleagues seeking help on the matter. Here we are again today, with a motion on the failures within our international protection system being discussed, and it is left to the Minister and his Green Party colleague to defend what the Social Democrats consider to be the indefensible. Where is the Minister for housing, Deputy Daragh O'Brien? Where are the Minister's cross-party Cabinet colleagues? What other Minister would be left to shoulder the sole responsibility for responding to a motion like this? We need more evidence that there is a whole-of-government approach to this catastrophe. We need a commitment to a whole-of-government response but such a commitment patently is not there. In fact, every time I hear a backbencher from Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael on the radio talking about the issue, it is the Minister's name they mention. They do not mention their own party colleagues in Cabinet. It is the Minister's name that they mention specifically.

In 2018, Ireland signed up to the EU reception conditions directive and transposed it into Irish law. This sets out the basic standard that we have committed to as a State, which is to ensure that applicants have access to housing and food, and that we give particular attention to vulnerable persons, especially unaccompanied children and victims of torture. Ireland needs to meet these basic conditions for those seeking international protection here. For over two years now, we have been operating in a state of emergency in the full knowledge that the day would come when we would not have enough accommodation for those arriving seeking refuge. We cannot allow this situation to become normalised, either from a moral or a legal standpoint. This obligation is on the State, not just the Minister's Department. It is an all-of-government obligation and we need leadership from the Taoiseach - whoever that may be in the coming weeks - the Minister for Housing and all of the Minister's Cabinet colleagues. Those colleagues are currently demonstrating a clear disregard for any degree of collective responsibility and although cruel in its own way, that is very obviously not the cruelty I referred to earlier.

None of us can deny that a humanitarian and public health crisis is intensifying because of the failure of the Government to provide adequate accommodation to asylum seekers. I note that the Minister said his Department is not meeting the basic minimum standards, a fair admission that I welcome. There is an obligation on the Government to provide adequate accommodation for asylum seekers that is warm and meets their basic needs. The Minister may say his Department is meeting the minimum standards but this is by no means adequate. The consequences of what is effectively a policy of State-sponsored hardship as a form of deterrent are being felt by real people every day on the streets of Dublin. I repeat, there is a policy of State-sponsored hardship as a form of deterrent, as echoed by the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, when he urged people not to come here because there is no more room. He said that if they come here, they will be in a tent on the side of a mountain.

There are now more than 1,300 international protection applicants without accommodation in Ireland. The impression was given that the Mount Street encampment only emerged in the last two weeks but we know that is completely untrue. It began last April. Hundreds of international protection applicants are sleeping in tents in laneways, off the grid. The Minister mentioned the fact that most people who were not offered accommodation are elsewhere. Do we know where they are? Has anybody answered that question yet? Where are the rest of them accommodated? There were no toilets, running water or sanitation facilities at the tent encampment that grew up on Mount Street over the last year. Why not? When did we become a society that does not offer people access to a bathroom? That was allowed to persist for over a year. Whose responsibility is that? Is it Dublin City Council's responsibility? No one has dragged council representatives in and asked them why the council did not cater for the people on Mount Street. They were left in increasingly unsanitary and dangerous conditions, at risk of severe weather and violent attack. Tents at the same location were set alight in an arson attack carried out by a racist mob in 2023 but nobody has been brought before the courts and held accountable for that.

In a letter to The Irish Times on 13 March 2024, infectious diseases registrar Dr. Ralph Hurley O’Dwyer said that in recent weeks he had looked after multiple young male international protection applicants who were hospitalised with serious medical conditions as a result of sleeping outside in the cold. He said that the management of these conditions requires lengthy, costly hospital stays.

On 14 March 2024, Dr. Angy Skuce, medical director of Safetynet Primary Care, told RTÉ the conditions on Mount Street were inhumane and said she had treated people at the site with multiple serious health issues.

I say to all Ministers that parliamentary debate often involves people with opposing views or belief systems but I know full well that this is not the case here. Please, help us to understand how these outcomes and horrific treatment of vulnerable persons were deemed to be acceptable for so long. Allow me to ask a different question. If the roles were reversed and if we sat in the position the Minister occupies now and he sat in ours, would the Minister settle for the excuses that are now being offered? Would the Minister allow us to squabble over what number of toilets met a threshold of decency for frightened humans placed at the foot of a mountain over a bank holiday weekend? Would the Minister talk about the fact that one dirty toilet was false news or whatever he called it? He did not acknowledge the fact that the toilet in question was there on the site. There may have been other toilets but that filthy, horrible toilet was one of those offered to those humans who were sent there. Would he recoil as we accused their advocates of misinformation in presenting these scared people's fears of cold, disease, harassment or lack of nourishment in these isolated encampments of tents and tarpaulin?

Direct provision will have been in existence for 25 years in 2025. Again, I will not personalise it but certainly throughout at least 15 of those years, I have walked alongside progressive members of the left in this Chamber and elsewhere in this country in calling for the end to that horrific practice. Would any of us on those marches, at the information sessions hosted by refugee support groups, for a moment have accepted that as war intensified globally, as temperature increases led to famine in the Horn of Africa or elsewhere, as demand for sanctuary from those humanitarian catastrophes increases, our standards would plummet so far? We would not have. To do so is not progressive - it certainly is not my understanding of Christian - it is just cruel. I am conscious that as we have this debate, mother and baby home survivors are once more protesting their exclusion from the small redress scheme they were promised from their horrific treatment at the hands of the State. I began by asking when we became so cruel. Perhaps the honest answer is that we have never been anything but and, if nothing else, the State's approach to migrants over the last few months has given a clearer understanding of how the other horrors of this State were permitted to happen for so long.

Certainly, we remain very good at allowing others to monetise the suffering of the vulnerable. My colleague, Deputy Catherine Murphy, has already demonstrated that aspect very well in her contribution. Let me ask the Minister directly where the reception centres are? We have had a back-and-forth about beds that were vacant or otherwise but we are 24 months into this and I still have not seen where the reception centres are. The Minister stated there is a memo going to Cabinet next week. Why is that happening 24 months in? He is of course aware that in February 2021, Catherine Day published a White Paper which recommended providing six State-run reception and integration centres. Very quickly, for obvious reasons the Minister already has captured, that became outdated. In July 2023, Catherine Day published an update to her 2021 White Paper and stated six reception centres should urgently be provided. Where are they? In her updated paper, Ms Day said three centres should be delivered by the end of 2023 and a further three by the end of 2024. None of these State-run reception and integration centres have yet been provided. There have been media reports that the Government may defer identifying locations for these centres until after the local elections in June 2024. That is actually the exact wording in the motion, which the Government is not opposing. I cannot understand, if that is not the truth, why it would not vote against it. Allow me to tell the Minister directly that if it is the case that State-operated reception centres are being politicised to an extent that they are being held back until after an election, that is in itself abhorrent and I can think of no greater justification for any progressive person to walk away from this Government if that is a tactic.

In the last minute that I have, let me ask, who is it that we are afraid of? Who has made us become so cruel when people who I understand to have such commitment to humanitarian advocacy are inclined to turn away? Is it the people who are burning down these buildings and telling us to be scared of the people inside them? Is that who we are afraid of? I am certainly not, and the community I represent in Dublin Central and the north inner city is not reflective of that either. When I knock on doors every single night, as I have been over the last weeks and months, people are talking to me about the inhumanity being experienced by people. They are not telling us to be harsh in our treatment.

There are those who wish to tell us to be scared of religious extremism that may be exported to our shores. They do not talk about the scenario where we have a church in this country that still has not paid reparations to its own victims. We understand religious extremism, we have fought it - all of us have - and would do it again if necessary. I will not have people scaremongering to that degree. These are the people who want to make us believe that those coming here will increase violence against women, for example, without once acknowledging the fact that the most vulnerable place a women can be is at home, and the place she is most likely to be killed is in her own home by a partner known to her. They still want to tell us we are bringing in people who are a danger. There is an agenda to make scapegoats of people who come here in search of sanctuary from bombs falling on them or from starvation. I will not be complicit in the apologies of two decades' time. I think we all know what we stand for and the Republic we want to be involved in. Putting people in tents and tarpaulins is not reflective of that. Without apology, we bring this motion to the Dáil today. If we have to do it again in two months' time, we absolutely will.

Deputy John Brady

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing the motion before us. It once again places the spotlight on the chaos, hypocrisy and utter failure of the Government to address the crippling housing crisis within the State. The Government's approach clearly is not working. It exposes a chaotic approach to immigration that has failed communities and those coming to these shores seeking international protection. The crux of the situation is that there is no Government plan for immigration and providing accommodation. We need a rules-based system, one where the rules are actually implemented, that is fair, efficient and enforced and with proper communication with communities. The Government approach has been shambolic, to say the least, from the outset and continues to be so up to this day. There is no plan and no consistent approach. You are not working with local communities. You are not bringing them with you.

Some 1,300 international protection applicants were living in tents last weekend, until they were scooped off the streets of the city centre and deposited in a field of mud on the side of the Dublin Mountains in what can only be described as a cynical PR exercise by the Government to clear the streets ahead of St. Patrick's Day. A further 13,000-plus people are homeless across the State. In this day and age, nobody in this State should be homeless. The conditions that international protection applicants were forced to live in were absolutely inhumane. Unfortunately, those shipped out to the site of the former nursing home at Crooksling are experiencing similar levels of misery, to the point that a growing number believe they are better off back on the streets of the city centre. What we have seen from the Government has been an absolute lack of coherence. They bounce from crisis to crisis, failing to address any of the core issues underpinning the crisis, leading to a system that takes years to process applications with zero enforcement at the end of the day. If a decision is made to refuse an application, it is simply not being enforced at the end.

My party's policies on housing are a matter of record and represent a pathway out of the current crisis for the thousands who have been impacted by the failure of successive Governments. We have consistently and vigorously argued the need for a fair, efficient and enforced immigration system with proper engagement with host communities dealing with core issues of capacity and local services that are lacking in communities right across the State. Ultimately, if an application has failed, it would be enforced in a timely manner, returning people safely to their country of origin. We also need to speed up the processing of international protection applications. It is completely unacceptable that it is taking years upon years in some cases to process them. This is overwhelming an already stretched system, creating huge bottlenecks in the provision of accommodation, leading to a shambolic approach by the Government to the issue of immigration.

In my own constituency of Wicklow, the Department is not only failing to communicate with the community there but is also failing to communicate with local representatives. The Government appears to be actively deceiving them regarding its true intentions. For years, the community in Newtown has campaigned for a former local HSE premises at River Lodge House, Trudder, to be transferred to the community. We have heard consistently from the Department that the premises are not fit for purpose or for human use.

The Minister and Department continue to this day to insist that no decision has been taken regarding the use of the site by IPAS. The reality is that the opposite appears to be the case. There is a clear attempt to hoodwink the community and public representatives on the issue. The reality is that locals can see bulldozers on the site as we speak, stripping back topsoil and putting down hard-core stone along with prefabs. Is it any wonder that communities are up in arms?

The Government's actions are fostering local anger and protest. Over the next couple of weeks, the Green Party will facilitate a charade in terms of Fine Gael putting forward its leader and new Taoiseach. The reality is that we need a general election in order that people can have a say on the crisis in housing and the health service and the shambolic and chaotic handling of the whole issue of immigration. We need a general election and the Minister needs to not facilitate the anointment of a new Fine Gael Taoiseach. He needs to ensure there is a general election so that the people can adjudicate on his failure and that of the Government on all of these issues.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Is cúis náire dúinn é mar náisiún go bhfuil daoine ar shráideanna na príomhchathrach ina gcónaí i bpubaill, idir iad siúd atá gan dídean agus iad siúd atá i gcóras na dteifeach. Le blianta roimhe seo, bhímid ar fad ag féachaint thar lear agus ag tarraingt airde ar na cathracha de phubaill a bhí sna Stáit Aontaithe. Bhíodh teip an Chéad Domhan á lua againn agus muid ag breathnú ar na pictiúirí sin. Anois, is pictiúirí de Shráid an Mhóta atá daoine ag féachaint orthu timpeall an domhain; pictiúirí ina bhfuil teip iomlán chórais na dteifeach sa tír seo léirithe go huile is go hiomlán. Tá sé dochreidte go bhfuilimid tar éis an staid sin a shroichint ag an am seo.

Tá an ceart ag an Aire nuair a deir sé go bhfuil cearta daonna i gceist, gur chóir dúinn na hiarratais ar tearmann a chosaint agus go bhfuil córas ann. An fhadhb bhunúsach atá ann anois, áfach, ná nach bhfuil an córas ag obair. Níl an Stát ag obair agus ag pleanáil i gceart. Bhí a fhios ag an Aire agus an Roinn agus bhí a fhios againne sa Teach seo go raibh fadhbanna ag teacht ach ní raibh an pleanáil déanta. Ní raibh dóthain suíomhanna ann. Fiú agus na suíomhanna á dhó ag na boiceanna seo, bhí a fhios againn go raibh gá lena bhfad Éireann níos mó suíomhanna. Bhí a fhios againn go mbeadh gá le tuilleadh gníomhartha chun a chinntiú dóibh siúd a bhí ag lorg tearmann anseo go mbeadh muid ag tabhairt meas dóibh, ag cuidiú leo agus nach mbeadh muid á gcur ar na sráideanna mar a bhí, agus mar atá, muid ag déanamh leo siúd gan dídean sa tír seo cheana féin. Ba chóir go mbeadh an córas trócaireach agus daonnachtúil i ngach uile bhealach dóibh siúd gan dídean, ó na daoine atá tagtha anseo ag lorg cosanta agus ag lorg dídine agus iad siúd anseo cheana féin atá sa chóras tithíochta. Tá teipthe go hiomlán ag an Rialtas agus Rialtais roimhe seo nach raibh an pleanáil i gceart agus go bhfuilimid sa stad ina bhfuilimid.

Tapaím an deis comhghairdeas a ghabháil le gnáthmhuintir na hÉireann. I want to congratulate and thank the ordinary people of Ireland who have stepped up to the mark, reached out and tried to ensure they can help and offer opportunities to those who are homeless in our society and come to Ireland to seek refuge. They have welcomed them. Where the Department has worked with people in the communities I represent, there has been a welcome and an effort by communities to ensure there is a space for men, women or children.

Communities have also said they need additional services and help with their work. It is not just a question of sites for those seeking international protection. That is the scandal. We need to consider the extra support required by communities, whether it is GPs or helping schools. Steps have been taken, but not enough has been done. That is why we sometimes see anger, which is misplaced. The anger should be directed towards the Government for its failures. There should never be anger in any shape or form directed at those who come to Ireland to seek refuge and those who are down on their luck in the same way that Irish people after the Famine, and even before, went to other countries around the world to seek refuge, a new life and to ensure that they could help those living in poverty in Ireland by sending money home.

We need to look at and understand our history to make sure that we learn from it and protect those who come to our shores. We need to ensure that the IPA system works properly and is fair for everyone. It is not fair to have people living in tents on the streets of Dublin. I want to support those who have called out the bigots and racists in our society who have used this as an opportunity to mobilise and attack those who are down on their luck. A lot more needs to be done to out them and show them for what they are, namely, bigots and racists. We have to challenge all of that, not just in Ireland but throughout Europe where there seems to be a rise in right-wing sentiment. As I said, our communities are great and they need support and services to ensure they can mobilise and respect those who come to our shores.

Deputy Matt Carthy

What we saw on Mount Street last week was a visualisation of the stark failures of the Government's immigration and asylum system. The Government has failed. The Minister is clearly out of his depth. Communities have been antagonised and vulnerable people left in atrocious and inhumane conditions. This should not be complicated. We need an asylum system that is fair, efficient and enforced. Those fleeing conflict and persecution and Ireland need this and our communities demand this.

The failure to enforce the current system has increased pressure on accommodation for those seeking asylum. It has left some people, like those on Mount Street, on the streets. It is taking far too long to process applications for asylum. That has to change. If someone comes to Ireland to seek asylum, their application should be processed quickly and there are no excuses for an application to take years.

If people are entitled to asylum, they should be quickly given the necessary support to enter the workforce and help enrich our country, just as Irish people have done elsewhere for generations. It is clear that the Government must speed up the processing of international protection applicants who come from so-called safe countries. They must ensure full and final decisions are made as fast as possible in order that we have a system which works for all applicants. In the case of all applicants, if people are not entitled to asylum, the requirement to leave must be enforced.

The reliance on the private sector, which comprises a small cohort of individuals and companies which are making huge profits from the system, is a scandal. Communities are paying the price. The reliance on the private sector means communities are not consulted and are losing key local facilities and amenities and, as a result, they are becoming angry.

The Minister has to work with and listen to people. He cannot ride roughshod over communities, many of whom have for too long been left behind. I am talking about small rural towns that have been crying out for investment in services for decades. In many rural towns and villages, refugee accommodation programmes have worked very well. In all of those cases, it was because there was communication, engagement and planning around education, health and integration with local communities.

What we are now seeing, however, day in, day out, are the consequences of the Government's shambolic approach and failure to plan, such as the housing crisis and the lack of GPs, dentists and gardaí. None of these issues is dealt with. Communities are under pressure and are being put under even more pressure, and they feel no one is listening. No one in the Government, it seems, understands the difficulties they are facing. Communities who have welcomed those seeking international protection have not received the investment they were promised. We have to deal with this in a way that is fair, efficient and enforced, as my party colleague said. Sinn Féin believes State-provided accommodation should be properly located, resourced and serviced, and the Government must start planning to return hotels and other buildings to their original purposes so as to restore local tourism-based economies and vital services for communities.

To deal with the migration crisis, we also have to deal with the factors that are pushing people from their home countries. We need to work for an end to conflicts that are creating devastation and driving migration in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa. We cannot support, as some Members do, warmongering and militarisation on the one hand, and then be surprised when it leads to further flows of displaced people on the other.

When the Government signed up to the temporary protection directive in respect of Ukraine, Ireland became an outlier in terms of conditions offered. Some Fianna Fáil representatives at the time suggested we might have up to 200,000 arrivals from Ukraine, and Sinn Féin raised serious concerns about the Government's lack of consideration as to the capacity to deal with such large numbers. We have about half those numbers and the entire system has collapsed. Those temporary measures will expire next year. The Government must plan for that and signal that our immigration laws will apply across the board. That means those here from Ukraine will need to either get a work visa or apply for international protection, in the same way as all others who are fleeing war. This mess has gone on for too long.

It is unacceptable that the Minister, who might take that smirk off his face, made an entire speech without acknowledging a single failure on his part or on that of his Department. The Government has to get its act together because we cannot go on any longer operating a system that is not fair, efficient or enforced. The longer he continues to operate, as he has been, with his head in the sand, the longer this crisis will go on and the further detached local communities will become from this process.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I was out canvassing during the week, and I knocked on a door and met a gentleman I have known, along with his family, for years. He said the Minister and his Government are making him a racist. This man was never a racist. He was a hardworking man who raised a good family. He never had an issue with refugees or asylum seekers. He has an adult child who has a disability and he has had to fight all his life for services for his child. Tragically, his wife had two strokes last year, and she cannot get a medical card. He is really angry because, as he said to me, he has had to fight all his life for his child and now he has to fight for his wife. Where is the fairness? He never had a problem with asylum seekers or refugees but one vulnerable group are being pitted against another. The anger should be at the Government, at its policies and at not giving his wife a medical card or his child the services she should have always had. His son came home from Australia to see his mother because she is sick. I was talking to him and he said he was going back to Australia because there is nothing for him here. He said that over there, he is valued and has a house, a roof over his head and a good standard of living. He asked why he would come back to Gurranabraher, where he is from, to live in his mother's boxroom at 30 years of age, because that is what the Government has done.

This is what people on the ground are saying. Another lady, Claire, also told me she feels she is becoming racist because even though she is undergoing treatment for cancer, she cannot get a medical card. She said people are getting off planes in Dublin and being given medical cards. I said to Claire that this is not their fault but the Government's fault for not giving everyone with cancer an entitlement to a medical card. The Government's policies are driving a wedge between communities.

The Minister has to take responsibility. He has to admit the Government has made mistakes. I have spoken to him in the Chamber about various centres. I will work with him. I have a lot of other things I want to say but I will focus on one example, the Gerald Griffin Street centre in Cork. There was a big announcement about it last week. People seeking asylum are living there, their children go to the local schools and they are working locally. They are now being put out to allow new people to come in. The Government is just massaging the figures to try to turn vulnerable people against one another, and it is wrong.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

I really do not know what to say after those contributions from Sinn Féin. I am disappointed I have to say this, because I sat through contributions a couple of weeks ago in respect of arson attacks and I really expected better from Sinn Féin. One contribution did not mention arson at all. It was all about the immigration system, consultation and all the rest of it. Many of the contributions from Sinn Féin were laudable and said the right thing, things I would absolutely agree with, and there are members of Sinn Féin in my constituency who are doing the hard work to fight back against extremism, racism and bigotry. Having listened to some of the contributions during this debate, however, I really do wonder where Sinn Féin is going, why it is running to the right, why it is pitting vulnerable people against one another-----

(Interruptions).

Deputy Thomas Gould

We are not going to the right at all. We have to deal with people on the ground. I will not have that said.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

-----and also-----

Deputy Thomas Gould

I will not have that said. I am on the front line.

An Ceann Comhairle

Excuse me, Deputy.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I have been attacked, in my home and my office, and I will not listen to that from him.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

It is remarkable how, when I try to make a constructive comment about other people's presentations in the Chamber-----

Deputy John Brady

In fairness, it is not constructive. It is a cheap attempt.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

-----with what the Minister has to deal with now. We did not have the same numbers. We did not have racists in the Dáil in the same number as the Minister has to deal with, or in the Seanad, but I did have a partner in government that was unsympathetic, which is what the Minister has. I also had to deal with - I have to say this - a permanent government that is institutionally racist. What I used to hear when I was in the Department at the time - not the same Department as the Minister's but the Department that was dealing with this issue - was pull factor, pull factor, pull factor. I feel there is a percentage of thought within the permanent government that wants to see images of people in tents in Mount Street because it suits the agenda of "Do not come here".

I always think that in politics, one is either part of the solution or part of the problem, and I do not think the Minister is part of the problem. I think he is part of the solution. He came into government with a fair-minded view of direct provision, namely, to get rid of it and to nationalise it, as it was, and not be dependent on the private sector. I applaud him for that vision, and I think that if it were not for the Ukrainian crisis, he would have delivered on that by now. I can absolutely accept that all these issues he has to deal with are difficult. He is getting zero support from his partners in government. That is clear and has been outlined by my colleagues in the Social Democrats, whom I should have thanked earlier for tabling this motion, which says a lot about their ethics and value system. This is the sort of imagery some people want there to be.

I might outline what I think would have worked two weeks ago in the case of Mount Street.

The Minister or a high-ranking official in his Department should have gone to Mount Street and given leadership to say that it was not acceptable and spoken to the incredible local community organisers, most of whom are local women who put to bed this idea that women need to be afraid of asylum seekers. They came down to the street and engaged with them. I witnessed it myself. They handed over shoes, clothes and food. They organised a rota of care. We also had medics there looking after them. There were people advocating for them, and speaking about the spread of disease like scabies and so on. The men, some of whom were minors, were appreciative of the efforts. However, you could not help but be taken aback that Saturday by how dramatic it was. A number of buses rolled up and the men were sent somewhere and did not know where they were going. Dublin City Council staff then came in and having previously slashed the tents individually collected them with a big picker. I spoke to one man who just got an email from the IPO saying there was accommodation organised for him in Dundrum. He did not know where Dundrum was. I accompanied him to the office. By the way, the local women had paid for taxis for some of the men to go to Dundrum because accommodation had been organised for them. I went into the IPO office with him, and asked how this man was supposed to get to Dundrum. They had no answer for me. They pointed to where the Luas stop was. They pointed to where the bus stop was. This man had no English. He was completely disorientated. He was clearly in a vulnerable situation. He had to try to trust me. We gave him cash. We put him in a taxi. The taxi man was sympathetic, and off he went to Dundrum. I thought there was a basic lack of humanity there within the system to facilitate that man to get where the email told him he had to go.

Deputy Whitmore said it very eloquently. We have forgotten that these are human beings. We have forgotten the humanity in their eyes. We are consistently dealing with them as statistics or numbers we just have to get down. It is as a direct result of Government policy that was initiated last December, and it is going to get worse because the clock is ticking on the 90 days accommodation that new arrival Ukrainian refugees have in our system. After 90 days, are we not pretty sure that we will have Ukrainians around Mount Street or other parts of the city or country, under the same conditions?

The Minister knows all this. We have never had a time in Ireland where elections were determined by immigration, where debates in this House were about immigration and people played the race card, but it is happening now. The only time it happened was 20 years ago, the first time I ran for a local election, when there was a citizenship referendum. It was a 78% vote for people in favour of restricting citizenship rights for Irish-born children. I did not think we would go back there again. That we are back here again is not the Minister's fault because I know he is trying to do the right thing, but we have to have a basic level of humanity in how we deal with these things. The way things were organised last Saturday speaks to a basic lack of respect. There was not even the simple compassion of information and care for those individuals to explain where they would go next, what the facilities would be like and how the process was going to benefit and empower them. I believe we can do better, but the Minister needs more support. Other Departments are not stepping up. The Department of Defence is not stepping up. The Department of Education is not stepping up, and the Department of housing is absolutely not stepping up. All parties in this House need to be part of the solution and not quickly become part of the problem.

Deputy Gino Kenny

The Minister will agree that nobody should be homeless, regardless of where they are from. That could be Dublin, Cork, Belfast or Galway. Nobody should be homeless in this day and age. We can all agree that for decades the policy has been free-market ideology that has normalised homelessness. It has put people on the street and without shelter. At the moment, there are 14,000 people in emergency accommodation. Some are Irish, and others are not from Ireland. That is a scandalous situation. More than 4,000 children are in emergency accommodation. It is quite incredible. The composition of those who are homeless has obviously changed from individuals to families.

However, the treatment of people last weekend was absolutely unacceptable, and they are people. They are human beings like me and you. It is unacceptable that people who come to this country seeking support are treated like that. I am sure the Minister does not support that. He is a decent person, but surely he could not support the way those people were treated last weekend. The majority of people in Ireland are very decent. We understand immigration. We understand that it is incredible we have empty State-owned buildings that people can use. They could be used, even in an emergency situation. Regardless of where they come from, people surely deserve some sort of shelter. Yet, this State is not doing that. You have to ask yourself why it is not doing that. It is obviously to send a signal to others telling them not to come here, because this is what will happen if they do. There are individuals in this State who are trying to pitch others against people trying to do their best, even in the area of homelessness. People are trying to stir up all sorts of division and hatred in our communities by asking, "Why do they not look after their own?" If people ask me that when I am out canvassing, I say that the State has never looked after its own. There is a reason people are homeless in the first place, which is policy. It has been the policy of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, in particular in the past 20 years, and is the reason people find themselves without a home or shelter. That goes down to people who have literally nowhere to go. We are talking about the most basic of human rights. If we cannot even offer people the basics of shelter, there is something fundamentally wrong with this Government.

Deputy Bríd Smith

On the same theme, I was out earlier with Martin Leahy who comes up from Cork every Thursday to sing his song, "Everyone Should Have a Home", outside the Dáil. I want to let people know that on 18 April, after we return from the Easter break, it will be his 100th week. All of us who are concerned with homelessness and the crisis of immigration and the homelessness of immigrants should be outside to sing that song with Martin on 18 April as a form of protest. I will stay on the question of empty State properties. I have been in touch with the Minister and thought we should have a separate session on what happened last Saturday. Like Deputy Ó Ríordáin, I was at the IPAS centre and saw the removal of the tents and property of immigrants by the private company hired by the council. It was the same company, which I witnessed moving Traveller accommodation a number of years ago from Labre Park, where Senator Eileen Flynn comes from. It seems that when there are issues to do with the illegal presence of people who have nowhere else to go, the solution seems to be to get a big mechanical grabber and just remove them. In the 21st century, it seems to me utterly shameful. My big issue with people being moved out to Crooksling was not so much the scrapping of the tents, as it was Crooksling itself. I know it because I worked there years ago. It is on the road from Tallaght to Blessington and was the site of an arson attack, precisely because immigrants were supposed to be moved out there. I thought you would want to be nuts to send them back to the scene of the crime and of course they did face protests, hostility and threats and probably will do again. I would like some guarantee from the Minister's office that they will be protected and safe there.

On the question of empty properties, what emerges when looking into this is that the HSE owns properties and the State owns properties. Will the Minister help us by clarifying this?

The Minister distinguishes between State-owned and HSE-owned property. Surely the HSE is an arm of the State and, therefore, whatever property it owns is State owned. On the question of arguing for using Baggot Street hospital, according to the architect Mel Reynolds, the hospital could, with very little expenditure, house up to 600 people because there are corridors, dormitories, toilets, showers, kitchens-----

Deputy Roderic O'Gorman

There is asbestos.

Deputy Bríd Smith

That is not what any of the reports say. It is brand-new information to us that there is asbestos in the hospital. Until now, all we have been told is that the State does not own it. It is owned by the HSE, which, it transpires, is the biggest land hoarder in the State, with over 300 empty properties, some of which I know of in my constituency. People have been described as racists and there are those who are trying to stir up trouble, and they certainly do so. I see their bile and hatred all the time on social media. Their argument is that Ireland is full and, therefore, we cannot take in any more refugees. The opposite could not be truer. Ireland is in no way full, in particular because of the properties and houses lying empty throughout the State. With 164,000 empty houses in the State and 2,000 families in emergency accommodation, of whom 57% are single-parent families, we can calculate that for every one family, there are 65 empty houses. For every man, woman or child who is in homeless accommodation, there are 12 empty properties in this State. Those figures are shocking. When we see the level of State-owned property that is lying empty, it is clear that there should not be a housing crisis for any man, woman or child, there should not be 4,000 homeless children growing up in emergency accommodation, there should not be 14,000 people in emergency accommodation and nobody should be sleeping in tents on the side of the road, and I mean nobody. I do not care where people are from; immigrants and people who come here in big numbers seeking our protection need to be helped and protected.

The empty buildings and resources are there. The Minister stated he will announce a new project next week which will take State-owned properties and ensure there is enough accommodation available. I am dying to hear that announcement. He said he is hopeful this can be achieved in a few months. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, made statements four years ago that empty properties would be freed up but they have not been. There is a problem with the way the Government is dealing with this. The Minister should acknowledge it and help us to deal with the fact that hatred of people who are brown and black is rising in communities because of the filth and lies that are being spread about them.

Deputy Matt Shanahan

I thank the Social Democrats, particularly Deputy Whitmore, for tabling this motion. One of the first words in the motion is "humanitarian". It is important that we remember that this should be at the centre of whatever policy we are trying to enact here.

The Government's responses and actions not only frame the national attitude to potential immigration but also underline the competency or otherwise of the State services to adequately manage and discharge the responsibilities we have given them. It is shameful that Ireland, a country where emigration has been so endemic and is so much part of our make-up, is in this position. Last week, the Taoiseach, trading on the moral authority of Ireland's experience of migration, gently excoriated his host in Washington to make the case to America, as forcefully as the occasion permitted, to use its moral authority to stop the continuing horrors in Gaza.

The motion calls on the Government to publish an audit of its international protection accommodation services identifying where vacant beds are available and if and how they are being used. Surely that information is available in Departments. Why has the Minister not been able to share that to date in the House?

I am old enough to remember when the Green Party promised to end direct provision. At the time, good, thinking people felt it was blight on our national reputation. Now it has suddenly become our national saviour in this situation. It is a marked improvement, for sure, from bussing people from Mount Street to the boonies to be hidden away for just one day while we celebrated our national identity around the world. "Out of sight, out of mind" is not a policy the people of this country want the Government to pursue.

The Government has continued to rely on the big problem, low competency defence that is endemic at present in our handling of housing, healthcare, the technological universities, transport - the list goes on. I know and have spoken to many Irish people who feel they are being let down by our shoddy second-rate infrastructure and services and, by implication, our instinct to offer a big, warm welcome to those currently under the spotlight.

The Minister previously announced that six national centres would be set up to manage international protection applicants. Why has there been a delay in getting this done? The Minister said he will get three centres done this year and three done next year. That does not sound like an emergency response. We have to look at how we are doing this and how it is affecting our reputation and unfortunately creating push-back around the country.

As children, we were all taught to look before you leap. It is clear from the site of approximately 150 tents being placed around Mount Street and the condition that the people in question found themselves in that the Government has shown a serious lack of understanding and process management.

Every time I have spoken about this humanitarian crisis - that is exactly what it is - I have said that we should have a pragmatic approach to taking in asylum seekers, accommodating them appropriately and ensuring those given leave to stay have significant opportunities presented to allow them to integrate fully into Irish society. I am not sure that is happening. I can tell the Minister what is not working, and well he knows it. Placing people into rural locations with little or no access to public services is not solving a problem but is, in fact, creating problems. Doing private procurement deals for the last available tourist beds in regional towns and villages is not solving a problem either but creating one.

Those trying to access Ireland under the international protection programme should not be placed in competition with the resident population who are also looking for access to accommodation and services, but this has clearly been a feature of the present roll-out. We are squeezing the economic potential out of some of the regional towns' tourism offerings with this ad hoc accommodation policy and inevitably stoking up and provoking people who have done so much to try to help in this crisis. The Minister needs to give serious time and capital consideration to providing centres. We need a new strategy around this. I heard the Minister's statement that he would announce something new next week. We will wait to see what that is. One simple thing we could do is expand the safe country list. Why are we not reflecting the safe country lists of our EU partners? That is the first thing we should do.

Second, we need to look at the opportunities for people to integrate in this country. We have seen in cities and towns across Europe and the world that if you bring people in and crowd them into one area, particularly people of the same population with the same language and you do not give them pathways to integrate or allow them an opportunity to quickly coalesce with the local population, you end up with a multicultural society in which there is not mixing. That is not what we want.

The Irish people are welcoming and want to remain welcoming. We have a number of centres in County Waterford and a number of populations who have integrated really well. It is heartening, when standing on the sidelines of GAA matches, to see the multicultural integration that is taking place. That is what we want to deliver, but we have to do it with respect. We need a system that works. We need to integrate those who are given leave to stay and we need to help those who are not given leave to stay to return to the places they came from.

Deputy Carol Nolan

Deputy Mattie McGrath

In advance of Holy Week, we will take no lectures from the hard left and the looney left who will not face the people.

This is a shambles. I lay the blame at the Minister's door. His colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Brien, has engaged with me on many occasions. It is ten weeks today since the hotel in Roscrea was taken over and the Garda was sent to terrorise the people of Roscrea. These are good decent people, ordinary mothers and fathers. They had no objection to children, they just wanted their hotel. The whole thing was manipulated, supported and cheer-led by the looney left, as I call them. They got their answer in the referendum. The people are sick, sore and tired of them. Our own young people have to go abroad. There are 13,500 people on our own housing lists. What happened in Mount Street is a disgrace. The Minister decided to go to Japan. Timbuktu would not be far enough at this stage if he went there and decided to stay. Then the unfortunate people were brought out to the Dublin Mountains and given tents. Meanwhile, hired machinery was used to destroy their tents in the city. What kind of Christianity was that? The problem is that the Government will not stop the people coming in because the Minister wants to welcome them all from God knows where. On Lá Fhéile Pádraig, the day of our country's patron saint, the number of asylum seekers here reached record levels. The number is still increasing. Then we had the public relations stunt with what was done in Mount Street and bringing the people out to the Dublin Mountains.

I ask the Minister to please engage with people. He has not gone to Roscrea, Fermoy or anywhere else to meet the people. However, the Minister cannot hide from the electorate. Neither can Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin, Labour or the Social Democrats. They got their answer last week. People are waiting in the long grass for them because they are sick, sore and tired of them and their dislike of the Irish people. They simply have a hatred for the Irish people who elect them and who pay their wages.

Deputy Joan Collins

How dare you.

Deputy Carol Nolan

The high moral ground now.

Deputy Michael Collins

The motion seems to be rooted in a utopian vision where Ireland has an infinite capacity for accommodation and can continue to absorb the world's suffering by accepting an unlimited number of asylum seekers. It is totally nuts to think that we can keep bringing people here to Ireland. Reality paints a different picture. Ireland has reached the limit of its capacity. We no longer have enough accommodation for our own citizens, let alone asylum seekers. The blame lies not only with the Government but also with parties like Labour, Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats. These parties are all proponents of open borders. They must share some responsibility for the current situation. It is simply inhumane to continue to allow asylum seekers into a country when the only option is to hand them a tent, while at the same time, we have record numbers of homeless people living in Irish streets. In a manner similar to what happened in the recent referendum, 70% to 75% of Irish people agree with my stance. As we see again, most parties in the Dáil are completely out of touch with what the electorate is saying. Before people start calling me racist and far right and all that kind of stuff, living in a tent on a street in a foreign country is not a way to treat people fleeing other countries. However, we do not have the capabilities to look after more and more refugees. It is long past time to slow the flow.

Could we have a bit of mutual respect, please?

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

I would appreciate that and to be given time to speak. From the point of facts, putting 31 people into a 4,500 sq. ft. building with no services to get them in and out of there, makes no sense. They also want to put 251 people into a school with no facilities.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy, you are out of time.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

Again, these looney tunes are still talking.

An Ceann Comhairle

Please stop calling people names.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

An Ceann Comhairle

Yes, well it is not appropriate or in order. We will now hear some reasoned comments from Deputy Catherine Connolly.

Deputy Catherine Connolly

I am sickened to my core by the divisive nature of what has just taken place here. I want to thank the Social Democrats for bringing this motion. I would like to place a little context on it. I have less than four minutes so I will do my best. Two days after we celebrated our national identity, nationally and internationally, 1,320 people were living on the streets of Dublin in tents.

They were moved from Mount Street to another location which was adjacent to a site that had been subject to an arson attack. People seeking asylum are the most vulnerable people in society. They are fleeing war and persecution. It is extremely important to use these words because that is what asylum seekers are. In the majority of cases, they have made treacherous, lengthy journeys at huge personal cost. Some 29,250 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014. Last year alone, 3,129 died or went missing. Internationally, 110 million people have been displaced. Some 43.3 million of those people were children of whom 36.4 million were refugees.

I will make a comment in the time I have left, having given those figures. The two Ministers sit here today totally on their own. Dr. Catherine Day produced a report back in September 2020, which said there was an urgent need for a cross-government approach. The report pointed out, as earlier reports had also observed, that direct provision was inhuman and not fit for purpose. Some 24 years later, we are still left with it. Yes, of course, there were over 100,000 people fleeing from the war in Ukraine but that is not why the Government failed to do something. It failed to implement its own White Paper. It failed to implement Catherine Day’s recommendations and it has utterly failed to implement all the very modest recommendations from the McMahon report.

We sit here today with this kind of divisive debate, which is absolutely beneath all of us when really we are talking about a finite number of people who number 28,181 and of whom almost 6,000 have refugee status. If this rich country cannot cope with that finite number of people seeking asylum here then I give up.

On war in Ukraine, we have utterly failed to use our voices for peace. We have been part of the warmongering and the Government constantly eroding our neutrality. Of course we will not, as a small country, be able to accept every single asylum seeker. That is not what this is about. It is about enforcing and complying with our legal obligations while, at the same time, using our independence, sovereignty and neutrality as a voice for peace in the world and not for warmongering.

Deputy Joan Collins

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing this motion to the House. It is a worthy motion and worthy of good debate.

We are watching the Government stand over a rapidly worsening crisis of accommodation for international protection applicants and Irish people. Time and again, the Government has missed the targets it has set for itself. It has become a national disgrace. We are failing to meet the international commitments we have to asylum seekers or the basic moral obligation we have to care for people living in this country. Last week, we witnessed the Government’s decision to tear down a camp of asylum seekers and ship them out to an isolated area without proper provisions put in place at that time.

Deputy Roderic O'Gorman

There was. It was all there.

Deputy Joan Collins

At that time, there were not proper facilities in place. The camp on Mount Street existed because of the failure of the State to provide appropriate accommodation and the camp at Crooksling has quickly become another failure of the State to provide appropriate accommodation. Tents are not appropriate accommodation and the Minister knows that. I know he wants to try to resolve it but we have not resolved it up to now and we have been looking at this situation for the last two years. Now people are returning to Mount Street with tents and more people arriving. We have created two humanitarian crises where there was one. It is typical of this Government. It multiplies the problems every time it fails to deal with the real problems. I wish to thank the local community for supporting people on Mount Street since December, as well as the medics and so on who have helped.

The bears strong similarities with how the State treats the record number of people in homelessness, who now number more than 14,000. This is a long-term crisis. As long-time housing activist Diarmuid Mac Dubhghlais noted:

This has sadly been a feature of Dublin homeless life for many years now, where we have seen Irish homeless moved on for purely cosmetic reasons, such as these celebrations, and notably during the visit of the US President last year. Out of sight and out of mind, but no long term solution.

Now we are looking at a crisis on the Ukrainian front with the 90-days State accommodation. We do not have a crystal ball as to what will happen there but I am sure it will not be good.

There is no long-term solution. That characterises almost everything this Government has done. We do not have the State capacity because this Government and successive governments preceding it represent wealth and profit. That means they will not tax wealth and profits at the rate needed for a functioning state. We are a privately rich country but publicly poor. This is a political decision made by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Green Party and the Labour Party over the past five decades to tax wealth at a rate that has shrunk our State while the population grew. We need to increase our State's capacity if we are to have any chance of solving the issues we face or we will continue to have failed governments with no long-term plan which cannot fix the many crises we face here today. Moreover, we will see more divisive debates like this in this Chamber while we do not solve these issues, because it will either be a case of turning to the right and putting up borders or investing in our public services to facilitate everyone in this country and those coming here.

The Government now wants us to accept a new Taoiseach not elected by the people from a party that came third in the last election, selected by a handful of Fine Gael TDs and Senators. Micheál Martin and Eamon Ryan might be happy for a handful of Fine Gael TDs to decide who our next Taoiseach will be but much of the rest of the country thinks the electorate should decide who leads this country. I think the Government has lost its mandate and its Taoiseach and we need an immediate general election.

Asylum seekers and refugees coming into this country seeking international protection are not causing the crisis in housing and public services. They are being caught up, like everyone else, in a crisis in housing and public services caused by successive governments that are ideologically opposed to taxing wealth at the rate needed for the State to function because the Government represents the needs of profit and wealth and not of ordinary people. This is a failed Government. I do not blame the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman; it is a whole-of-government failure. It has lost its political mandate and it is playing political musical chairs while the country falls apart. This Government needs to go. We need an election now.

An Ceann Comhairle

Before I call the Minister of State, we have had possibly unnecessarily acrimonious debate over the last while. I can only say this. I grew up in a country that was practically monocultural and practically monoethnic. I am glad that my adult children have grown to adulthood in a country that is multiethnic. I believe that the Ireland we live in today is enriched by the people who have come here through the visa system and who have come here seeking a better standard of living for themselves and their families, as Irish people did in so many other parts of the world. I believe passionately that we are seeing a phenomenon that will continue and grow of migration from the developing countries to the developed world where we need people to work in our health services and right across the whole economy. It behoves us as politicians – all of us – to find a way to work together to build consensus and support for that; not to build division and resentment. And it behoves the Government to support you, Minister, in a whole-of-government approach so that you can achieve the objectives that we all know you have.

I call the Minister of State, Deputy O’Brien.

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

Thank you, Ceann Comhairle, for your intervention and your comments.

Since January, approximately 2,400 beds have been brought into use for those seeking accommodation by the international protection accommodation services. That said, week in, week out, we are opening new accommodation centres in communities across the country. Thankfully, by and large, they go unremarked upon because, for the most part, local communities have welcomed these new arrivals and people are getting on with their lives, including those people trying to build a new life in a new country with all the hardship that entails.

Since January 2022, the Department has brought over 200 additional properties into use to accommodate those who arrive in Ireland seeking international protection. I wish to pay credit to the Department's officials. They are invisible and they are criticised quite a lot but they are working constantly to try to bring more bed spaces into use. The evidence is there in that regard.

For context, at the end of January 2022, IPAS had 8,300 bed spaces in use and it now has approximately 28,000 beds in use. That was at a time when there was a very large demand for beneficiaries of temporary protection, BOTP, beds.

Initial offers of accommodation are received by the international protection procurement service, primarily through its email portal, ipps@equality.gov.ie. Once an offer is received, the IPPS sends a proposal template to the prospective provider that he or she is required to complete and return. I wanted to put out there how we do this and how we need people to contact us. As with most issues these days, especially those related to immigration and the international protection system, misinformation and fabrication are rife. I urge all Members in both Houses, and the wider public, to be cognisant of that proliferation of misinformation and to desist from feeding, creating and developing it. I ask them to please desist from trying to stir anger in communities, where they really do not need to do so.

I will pick up on an issue raised regarding concerns about unaccommodated people. I will clarify, and most people know this, that drop-in day services are provided to all non-accommodated persons who wish to avail of them. In such centres, international protection applicants can access facilities, including hot showers, meals and laundry services, seven days a week. I know that is not good enough but I want those facts to be out there. It is important to note, unfortunately, that some of the awful scenes of protest and criminal damage we have seen in a small number of areas have negatively impacted on our ability to secure IP beds. I ask people, especially Deputies, to reflect on that.

I will give a piece of information in respect of a point raised by Deputy Bríd Smith. There is 24-hour security at Crooksling at present. That is an important point to make.

I will briefly mention the community engagement team, CET. Between September 2023 and now, the CET has issued 63 briefings to our stakeholders, including public representatives, local authorities, local development companies and key departments and agencies. Within this, the CET has facilitated approximately 30 meetings with public representatives, local development companies, community groups and residents. Others have involved direct engagement with public representatives, including many phone calls and online briefings, other more hands-on engagements and, in many cases, multiple on-site visits. The CET has responded to queries and follows up on all briefings as swiftly as it can. The team also engages with other stakeholders, outside of the immediate opening of centres, to build relationships and networks with key groups. This includes meeting with communities and a community response for local development companies and other NGOs. It is to be hoped that over the next couple of weeks and months, I will announce further supports for communities that are working on the ground. I echo Deputy Ó Snodaigh's praise of community groups that have stood up and helped us. I am doing my best to see if we can get more resourcing to help in that regard.

I will pick up on Deputy Ó Ríordáin's point on the case of the individual man who was trying to get to Dundrum. That is not how we do things. It is not how it should have happened. I would like to find out more but that might be difficult to do. However, if someone needs to get to a location, we facilitate it, so something went wrong. I apologise for that. I accept that the system has not always operated the way everyone would like. However, I can assure Deputies that actions are always taken with the health and safety of people as a priority. That informs all decisions.

I will pick up on another issue that the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, touched on, namely, the potential use of accommodation for BOTPs. As the requirement for accommodation for Ukrainian nationals reduces, the IPPS is actively engaging with the Ukraine division of the Department to utilise any suitable accommodation that may become available. However, this is dependent on the agreement of the provider to accommodate international protection applicants. Different types of contracts are in place so we need agreement from the provider in that regard.

I find it, and have found it since December, very distressing that we are in a situation where we are having difficulty in providing enough accommodation, which results in some people not being accommodated. I ask every organisation in the State, be it a State or non-State body, to please look at their land or property portfolio to see if there is something we might be able to use. I ask them to please contact us if they believe there is anything that is remotely usable, even temporarily, to help us offer sanctuary to those seeking it in their hour of desperate need.

If somebody has a complaint to make, I will receive that complaint and deal with it.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I agree with the point made that there is an untold story in Ireland that is not getting the attention it deserves, which is the quiet work being done throughout the country by people in communities who are supporting people seeking international protection. That can be seen in communities throughout Ireland. It does not get the attention others get but it is happening throughout our country. It is something many of us are very supportive and proud of. It could be seen last weekend. I want to talk about what happened last weekend, but many people in my constituency last Saturday and Sunday were fund-raising and getting equipment together, including tents, sleeping materials, mats and other essential equipment, to make sure that people who had been brought out to Crooksling would have more than the very minimum they were provided with at the time. They also supported people who did not feel safe there and had returned to the city centre. It is commendable that people stepped in to do that but people should not feel the need to step in for failures in what the State is doing. We see this not just in terms of people seeking international protection. We see it all the time in respect of homeless people who are sleeping on our streets that a deficiency in services means that volunteers step in to try to breach those deficiencies, and then often get a lot of criticism from the very State agencies that are not doing enough to support people.

The second thing I will say is not to take away from anyone's efforts in this area. I appreciate it is a challenging area, but what has happened is the State has been dehumanising in its treatment of people. There is no question that leaving people out in the street, with no toilet facilities, water or support, is anything but an abject failure of the State. It dehumanises people fleeing war and persecution. It also has to be said that what happened last Saturday was not the right way to go about this. People were effectively ordered onto buses at 8 a.m. without any notice and with very little information. They were told they could not bring bedding with them but just backpacks. The only information they were given was that they were told they would be accommodated somewhere comfortable. They were not told they were going to be accommodated in flimsy tents. They arrived at a site in the Dublin Mountains where protestors were soon outside on a site that had been subject to an arson attack.

When the men had been removed from the Mount Street area, their tents - effectively their homes - the small amount of bedding they had and so forth were removed and ripped up. This resulted in a situation whereby some of the people had no shelter at all last Saturday night. That is not the way to treat people. It is not dignified and is not the kind of respect that people should be shown. There should have been proper engagement. People should be communicated with and given information. Notwithstanding any challenges the State has with regard to its response, there would at least have been time to treat people with a bit of dignity and respect and not be taking away from their bit of agency. That is very important. When one has nothing or next to nothing, one's agency is very important. The very least the State could do is not to take that away. That is very important, as is treating people as human beings and engaging with them.

The situation in Crooksling is not the answer, particularly in view of the very basic provision there. Time and again we are seeing this, whether it relates to how people seeking international protection are treated or our challenges in the areas of health, housing or homelessness. We are seeing the State turning challenges into crises and difficult situations and, sometimes unwittingly, into flashpoints. We need much stronger leadership from the State in the context of providing the basic necessities for people who need them. We do not need more solutions provided by the private sector that give rise to large profits for some providers; we need a State or not-for-profit response.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

I thank the Ministers for staying here for the entire debate. We often have Private Members' debates where Ministers are not in a position to stay for the whole thing.

I was struck by a comment made by my colleague Deputy Gannon earlier. The Deputy asked about what would happen if he was sitting in the Minister's seat and the Minister as sitting in his during the current situation? What I hope the Minister would do is what we are doing, which is raising the matter and jumping up and down. On the basis of his contribution and from what I have heard him say previously, I do not believe that he thinks what happened was right. We are trying to hold the Minister to account because there are failings. The people involved were failed. We have an important job to do. We are doing it today by raising this matter in the Dáil. It is really challenging and difficult. I imagine that some days the Minister wonders why he is doing it and why we are where we are. We all have a role to play. Our role is saying that the Government needs to put a stop to this kind of treatment. That can be done directly by the Minister through his Department or by him putting pressure on his Government partners. I am of the view that a large part of the problem lies with the latter. As Minister, that is his role. Hopefully, we will see a change in how all of this is done.

The reason this matter is incredibly important - and I have been thinking about it great deal over the past number of days - is that this is not just an issue of immigration, of the men involved or of ensuring that people's human rights are upheld. If the Minister does not get this right, it will create an Ireland none of us wants. There is a real risk when it comes to social cohesion. We have communities turning on each other. People think that they can say what they like - they do so quite freely - and use words and slurs that were never previously acceptable. We really needed to look elsewhere in respect of this matter. We missed an opportunity to look at other countries, see what was happening there and redouble our efforts to ensure that it was not going to happen here. Unfortunately, we are past that point now.

I understand comments made by the Ceann Comhairle. What I am seeing is that whether it is online or in discussions with people, either on a personal basis or in this Chamber, misinformation is happening. There is a responsibility on each of us to call this out. Using words like "open borders" would imply that we have open borders, but we do not. We need to start talking about these things. When we hear people refer to unvetted men, we need to point out that no one in this country is vetted unless they are working with children or vulnerable people. We need to start having those conversations. It is hard to have them; I know because done it. The phrase "military age men" is the kind of terminology that is seeping into natural discourse. I believe that most people do not want that here If the silent majority do not talk and push back, then the type of terminology to which I refer becomes normalised. If we have people in this House calling others names or referring to them as loonies or completely disregarding EU law and saying that there is no need for the State to apply it, there is a responsibility on each of us to push back because the risk is way too high.

I do not know if we are at the point of no return, but we have to do absolutely everything we can to try to get on top of this and ensure that we do not go any further down this road. We need to treat all people with respect. The State and its organs need to do that also. We have laid out our position and our points. I hope that the Minister will take them on board and that he will push back within the Government in instances where he feels it is failing again.

Question put and agreed to.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 21 Mar 2024

Accommodation for International Protection Applicants: Motion [Private Members]

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 21 Mar 2024