Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on what is a very emotive subject whether people are directly affected by it or not.

One of the issues that has manifested in recent days is the total confusion in the Government about numbers and percentages. This is leading to more fodder and ammunition for those termed right-wing groups that are trying to put the fear of God into people. It is high time the Government gave us a factual account of how people are coming into the country, what numbers are coming through Northern Ireland and how we are dealing with that. I am concerned because a few weeks ago, when Deputy Tóibín asked a question there were no answers. He was told that the Department did not hold records of who is coming in and so forth and all of a sudden percentages are being bandied about. It is creating uncertainty and a lack of trust.

That lack of trust has permeated its way into communities where proposals are being made to put asylum seekers into buildings in places we know are not suitable. It is being done under a cloak and dagger approach, with very little information and when there is no information the void that is left is filled with false information by people who want to do that to create instability. To be honest, right now the Government is not doing anything to stabilise things and get out the facts.

Last week, I raised the issue of Grattan Court and how the residents and businesses have suffered so much. They have been prisoners in their own properties. I saw that the asylum seekers in the camps are being shifted this morning. When they are taken from there, where are they going? They are human beings, as was said earlier. None of the residents want to see them just being hurled off to some other place, thereby moving the problem to some other place. What protections are being put in place in order that the campsite does not resurrect itself again in a few weeks' time outside the IPAS offices?

It is high time that we decided. If we want to help asylum seekers, why can we not allow them to work? One of the biggest fears I hear from people is that grown men have nothing to do all day and are sitting around, hanging around and things will go wrong. Why can we not allow people to work? We need workers. Everyone is looking for workers. Why can we not have a plan to make sure that if we have asylum seekers here, we deal with them and if they remain in the country, we allow them to work? That is what we need. We need workers at the moment for the economy to develop and these are people who can work, we hope. We would be able to test the market to see what kind of asset we have in these people.

We have always been seen as a country of 1,000 welcomes, but our tourism industry is being destroyed in places at the moment because hotels are being taken over in places where they were available to tourists previously.

A lot of issues are going on and it seems to be rumbling on. I plead with the Government to make sure it gets its act together and gives us the facts as they are.

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