Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit leis an rún tábhachtach seo a phlé agus cuirim fáilte roimh an rún freisin, ar son an ghrúpa Fhine Gael.
I welcome the motion on behalf of the Fine Gael group and I hope it will pass because it is an important measure. The reality of our situation is that we are an island on the periphery of Europe. Having joined what was then the European Economic Community in 1973, we have seen nothing but benefits from our membership of the European Union.
We benefited initially, primarily from structural and financial measures that helped us build up the infrastructure within this country, but we have also benefited over that time from rules and regulations, which we have played a part in making, that have come to have legal effect in this country. These rules and regulations have benefited us across policy areas from law and order to health, employee rights, and health and safety. There are so many areas where the progress we have made in this country has been led in the first instance by law that has been made in Brussels, through the Parliament and through the Commission, but with the input, crucially, of the Irish body politic, either through our MEPs or through our Government members in the Council of Europe. On the whole, and this is something that is reflected in every survey of Irish people, Irish people recognise the benefits of our membership of the European Union and of our taking part in European institutions, and this is another step along that road.
There is nothing to my mind but benefit to us in dealing with what the Minister has described as the hugely intense pressure that exists throughout the Continent of Europe regarding migration. We know that people are on the move. We know there are scenes of war and famine throughout the world. Those people, of course, seek to come to Europe because Europe is a beacon of the things they seek out - a safe place to live, a place where they can earn a living and a place where they can get a reliable supply of the necessities of life, be it food, water, accommodation, electricity or whatever. We are lucky to live in a part of the world where there is a measure of security in that regard and, for that reason, those who live in war-torn parts of the world or places that are destroyed by drought or whatever, of course, seek to migrate to Europe.
The ability to deal with that is a pressure that exists on every member of the European Union. Ireland is not excluded from that, although we are, in real terms, insulated somewhat by our distance from the land borders of Europe, particularly on the eastern and southern fronts of Europe, where those countries deal much more acutely with that.
We often hear in the discourse in the media in this country of how Ireland is full - I do not accept that for a moment - or how we are coming under somehow more pressure than any other European country. In fact, if you look at the relative numbers, based on population, Cyprus takes 19 times more migrants into its country than we do in Ireland. France takes six times more than we do and it is much closer to us than Cyprus. In relative terms, we are below mid-table in Europe in terms of the number of migrants who come here.
Notwithstanding that, as I have said on a number of occasions, I am immensely proud of the response we have had to people who have come to this country seeking our protection, be they temporary protection applicants, for example, people coming from Ukraine who have been welcomed into communities throughout this country and who have, through their ability to work, for example, become functioning members of those communities and who have in their own way contributed through that employment and provided services through their own skills and knowledge bases, or international protection applicants who have come here because they have nowhere else to go in many instances and because they are fleeing other types of duress in their own country. The latter have also been welcomed by the vast majority of Irish people. There remains a small cohort who reject the notion that those people should be allowed to come here because somehow they fear the impact they might have on our society. In my experience, that impact has been universally positive. As somebody from Dún Laoghaire and Blackrock, I am often told none of them are moving into Blackrock or Dún Laoghaire and it is well for me to say it is not a problem. That, of course, is not true. We have international protection accommodation sites in Blackrock and Dún Laoghaire, for example, and they have been welcomed by the local communities. They have formed a positive part of our community, joining organisations such as Tidy Towns. When, after six months, they have the right to work, they will also be available to help out in an employment context because we know there is a crisis of people to do work. In that regard, I would be in favour of allowing people who come here seeking international protection to be allowed to work from the beginning so that they can contribute and play their part, if they can and where they want to. The vast majority of them want to.
I recognise that, first and foremost, we need immigration. We often conflate the idea of immigration and migration, but we also need migration. We as a country benefited from other countries accommodating our migrants. When people left, we called them emigrants from this country, but they were immigrants into another country. That is what they were. They were migrants. They were people who went to a different country seeking a better life, security for their families and prospects for themselves. That is exactly the same as the people who are coming here and we need to acknowledge that.
This pact is a positive measure, and this is the important point in this debate. The Government recognises that this pressure exists in every European country. The Government recognises there must be something we can do about that. We are lucky enough to be part of the European Union and to be part of a community of countries which can pool what they have in terms of intelligence, knowledge, resources and capacity to deal with this problem on a Europe-wide basis. That is what this pact is about, first and foremost. It is not about ceding our sovereignty. It is not about saying Brussels decides who comes here. That is dangerous language because it is grossly misleading. It is the kind of thing we saw happening in Britain before Brexit, for example, with politicians for many years telling the populace that whatever was wrong was Brussels' fault. That is not true and it is not in the context of this pact either. This is a Community response.
At no point, in the context of Ireland's history within Europe, has it been better for us to go it alone. In fact, we have only ever benefited when we have joined in with European programmes and European policies to act with our neighbours across Europe. That is of benefit to us. As a fraction of the European population, a fraction of the European area and a fraction of the European economy, of course, we are better off being part of the whole than standing it alone. The narrative I hear from many people who are opposed to this pact is that we are somehow better off not to sign up to this, to keep our opt-out provision under Protocol No. 21 and go it alone because Ireland would be better off on its own. It would not.
The aspects of this pact that are so important are the elements that allow us to deal with the migration pressures on this country. These are, for example, the solidarity measures in the pact. These are tremendously important. If we feel we cannot deal with the number of people who come here, there will now be a valve available to us to refuse to take people and to have them relocated in other European countries. We will have access to the Eurodac database which will allow us to make an assessment at the border of people coming here who may have applied for international protection in other countries. Let us remember we have benefited for a long time from people applying for asylum in other countries and maybe finding their way here to Ireland because we are, generally speaking, at the end of the pipeline of migration. Most of the countries from which people migrate to Ireland do not have direct access to Ireland. They do not have direct flights nor do they have direct transport routes, so people will have travelled through other countries. If, for example, somebody comes through Frankfurt, Charles de Gaulle in Paris or Schiphol in Amsterdam and has applied for asylum in that country, it allows us to make a decision at the border whether to accept that person into our international protection process here because border agents will be equipped with an instant database, linked to fingerprints and other identity protocols, to identify whether the person has already applied elsewhere. That has to be an improvement on the system.
We know there is huge pressure on our system. We know that the number of applications has accelerated hugely, especially two years ago. Last year, we had 13,600 applicants for international protection in this country and we expect there to be more this year. Those people come into the country. They are processed through the international protection office in Dublin, although that processing has been speeded up hugely thanks to investment from the Minister in the number of staff there, thereby massively reducing application times. It still means, nonetheless, applicants have to be brought in, put into the system, accommodated and looked after. All of that takes resources and time. This system will allow us, for a portion of people coming to this country, to make a decision at the border and for them to be returned to another country in the case where they have made an international protection application in that other European country. That is a huge step forward that we cannot take at the moment, for example. Those are merely two measures I mention.
Generally speaking, the pact also gives us access to resources in terms of money, and there is a European Commission budget we will be able to avail of to help us deal with the migration issue. As the Minister of State said, it does not connote obligations on us to take any number of people. We get to set what that number is. There may be financial obligations if we want to avail of the solidarity mechanism but the reality is there is a cost to us either way in terms of people coming here, and the cost of relocating them is not necessarily more.
Certainly, there is a huge opportunity for us as a country to deal with the obligations we have. Sometimes when listening to the debate on these issues, we forget we are talking about our international legal obligations. That has to be borne in mind when we are talking about how we deal with it.
I have heard many people say this is ceding our sovereignty and we are giving up our sovereignty. The reality is that when you become part of a group, as we do in Europe, we share our sovereignty. We already have, if you like, ceded a certain amount of sovereignty by dint of our membership of the European Union.
That is a legal fact. What we are entering into is a co-operation agreement. Of course, we still retain powers and a say within that. That is not ceding sovereignty. It is saying that we cannot go it alone and we want to work with our neighbours in Europe on how we will resolve the issue and how we will agree to deal with it. There is no ceding of sovereignty in saying that we are willing for there to be an element of give and take in that relationship. How it could possibly be any other way? There must be a sharing of resources and there must be give and take. That is not a ceding of sovereignty, nor does it connote a requirement on us to take any specific number of people. Whatever number of people we decide to take will be decided by the Government in Dublin and not anywhere else. We retain decision-making power in that regard.
The comparisons that have been made with countries such as Denmark and Poland, for example, are totally ill-informed because those countries are part of the Schengen area. Ireland is not part of the Schengen area. If we isolate ourselves further, it should be remembered we still have an open border with the United Kingdom on the island of Ireland that allows free transit, which is why we are not part of the Schengen area. Comparisons with countries that have existing arrangements with other members of the Schengen area are misleading and not helpful. It is also misleading to say this directive is undemocratic, as some people have said. This is a decision being made by our Government, which is the delegate of the people of Ireland. It has decided this is something we should opt into. It has not decided to opt into this under any duress or any lack of reason. In fact, quite the opposite is the case. The Government has looked at the situation here and has decided, from my reading of it, that there is a benefit for Ireland in joining this pact because it equips us with what we need to deal with the crisis.
I encourage Members, when looking at the motion, to have regard to the fact that, first, we have international obligations that must be satisfied. Second, they should recognise the fact that while migration carries with it pressures and difficulties, it also carries huge opportunities for Ireland in terms of the diversity of our communities and the skills and knowledge that come to our country, which will add to our economy as much as to our communities, towns, villages and cities throughout the country.
Migration and immigration are both good and potentially good for us. They are not without their problems. There are those who tell us, for example, about unvetted males, which is an absolutely misleading term. I am an unvetted male, yet nobody seems to be afraid of me. Maybe more of them should be. Nobody talks about Irish people in this regard. Many of us males are unvetted.
