Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 October 2017
38. Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality his views on pursuing an amnesty for young persons who are undocumented and have been living here since childhood and who effectively are restricted regarding employment, training and further education. [43709/17]
View answer41. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Justice and Equality his plans to establish a time-bound scheme with transparent criteria to regularise the position of undocumented migrants here. [44241/17]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 38 and 41 together.
Successive Ministers have informed the House that there are no plans to introduce a general regularisation scheme for those who are currently illegally resident in the State. Any such proposals could give rise to any number of unpredictable and potentially very costly impacts across the full range of public and social services. In particularly, there may well be significant implications for the operation of the Common Travel Area, in the context of Britain withdrawing from the European Union. Any proposal in this regard would have to be very carefully considered.
In addition, at the European level, Ireland together with the other Member States of the European Union, has committed under the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum agreed at the European Council in October 2008 "to use only case-by-case regularisation, rather than generalised regularisation, under national law, for humanitarian or economic reasons". While the Pact is not legally binding, the political commitment remains opposed to any form of general regularisation of those illegally present in Member States. Member States commitment to this type of approach has held steadfast despite the unprecedented movement of persons through the Mediterranean towards the European Union during recent years. The Common European Asylum System continues to operate on a case by case basis and the Hot Spots in Greece and Italy operate a case management approach to the identification and registration of migrants and to establish those who are in need of international protection.
The position of Member States, then and now, is clearly against any form of process that would in any way legitimise the status of those unlawfully present without first examining the merits of their individual cases.
Ireland operates a very open immigration regime with many legal pathways open to non-EEA nationals to enter and reside in the State lawfully. The Deputy will appreciate that, in most cases, a person becomes undocumented through their own actions either by entering the state illegally in the first place or by deciding not to leave the State when they no longer have a valid immigration permission. Such persons are always free to present their case, on its own merits, to the immigration authorities and it is reasonable for the State to expect that the persons concerned would respect the final decision.
However, in the context of the Report on Immigration, Asylum and the Refugee Crisis published by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Equality on 29 June 2017 I have asked officials from my Department to examine if any of the recommendations could be acted on further. I am happy to act upon any proposals brought forward in this context subject to the important public policy considerations and international obligations outlined above.
