Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I too express solidarity with the Minister and her family. There has been discussion in this House over the past few years about the coarsening of debate. We are seeing that going to another level now where we are seeing things falling into the criminal code. There is a real need for leadership right across the House on that.

We need a well-managed asylum system, irrespective of the EU migration pact, for people who have left their own countries and arrived in Ireland, often in a chaotic way. They have a right to seek asylum or international protection here. There are people in this country who think you can just put someone back on a plane or a boat. The reality is that seeking asylum is a human right, and when it is claimed it must be processed.

While the international protection applicant awaits a decision on his or her claim, the Irish State is required to provide accommodation, food and medical care. Applicants are also entitled to legal aid throughout the process. Having gone through the process, there are several reasons someone will be given the right to remain. The first is the very obvious one, that is, that he or she will get refugee status. An applicant may be awarded subsidiary protection, which means the applicant cannot be returned to his or her country because of the fact that he or she faces serious harm or worse. There is no dispute in any of this. It can also be decided that an applicant can remain for humanitarian reasons. We have seen cases of that in the past. We do not know how many people have applied for that. Irrespective of the EU migration pact, people who fall into these three categories should have the right to remain.

The migration pact does not guarantee legal aid. There is a very short turnaround time and there is a real risk of people being returned to harm. The final category, after the process is exhausted, is where an applicant can be refused protection. He or she is then required to leave or is subject to deportation. That aspect of the process has to work in order to have an effective system, but none of this happens in two hours in Dublin Airport or in the International Protection Office. It takes time, and if Ireland signs up to the EU migration pact, it will still take time, but there are a lot of unknowns as to how the pact would work in reality. We in the Social Democrats see that there is merit in some of what has been proposed but we have serious concerns about aspects of the migration pact and how it might work in practice.

The Government announced that Ireland will opt in in advance of any discussion in the Dáil or the justice committee. It has made it clear that when it comes to the Dáil, there will be just one vote, which is not the way it was handled in the European Parliament. If this country opts into the migration pact, we have been told by the Taoiseach that it will have to be legislated for at some point in the future and before 2026, and the Dáil will have a vote on each piece of legislation. The problem is that those separate pieces of legislation will be about the detail but not about the principle if we have already opted into the remaining aspects of the pact.

The chaotic way the Government has been dealing with the migration issue has opened the door for some very nasty forces that have made it much more difficult to have a rational debate about the migration system both now and into the future. The direct provision system, together with the length of time it takes for an applicant to get through the system, was a significant issue before the war in Ukraine. Then we have seen a steady increase in the numbers seeking asylum, with nowhere to provide accommodation. The world is a chaotic place and has been for several years. Places such as Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Gaza and the West Bank are particular flashpoints at the moment. Wars, together with the climate crisis, are displacing people. That is the reason so many people are on the move. Many people have no real choice.

As regards the direct provision system, thousands of people who have been granted the right to remain are unable to move on because of the housing crisis. There is simply nowhere for them to move on to, and that is not a problem of their making. Really inappropriate accommodation is being used. One Department has been overloaded. Many of us have been saying there needs to be a whole-of-government approach. The kinds of checks and balances that are usual and needed around the provision of accommodation have been absent, and we seem to be in a state of permanent emergency. There is also a feeling that the situation is in chaos. I have no doubt that there is also profiteering happening. We have seen some evidence of that at the public accounts committee. That chaos is causing legitimate concerns but there are also malign forces inserting themselves into this issue.

The pact is composed of five separate regulations and would require several different pieces of legislation into the future, as I have said. The screening regulation would create a uniform set of rules concerning the identification of non-EU nationals upon their arrival. We have been told that this will increase security in the Schengen area. Of course, we are not in the Schengen area and are unlikely to be into the future. We are in a unique position in having a common travel area between us and a third country, and one size for all the EU does not fit all circumstances. We in the Social Democrats have concerns about that as a consequence.

The Eurodac regulation seeks to develop a common database gathering more accurate and complete data to detect unauthorised movements. We believe that this is a reasonable thing to do.

The third one is the asylum procedures regulation. This, we are told, will make the return of asylum seekers and border procedures quicker. Again, the devil will be in the detail. One of our concerns is whether the quicker procedures would be fair procedures. The common travel area, again, is an issue of not insignificant detail. We have seen huge detention camps in countries such as Italy, Greece and Cyprus. Reassurances of something like that where it is happening elsewhere do not really sit well. How would that work? I have serious concerns about that and that we would see detention camps here.

The asylum migration management regulation would establish a new solidarity mechanism among member states to balance the current system, whereby a few countries are responsible for the vast majority of asylum applications and clear rules on responsibility for asylum applicants. Yes, we are members of the European Union, and that aspect of it has merit. Under the crisis and force majeureregulation, the concept of instrumentalisation, a new word for me, has been introduced, allowing a member state to derogate from its obligations. It aims to prevent and address situations such as the border tensions between Greece and Turkey in 2020 or the sudden influx of migrants from Belarus, for example, to eastern European countries in 2021.

As I said, we in the Social Democrats see merit in some of what is proposed, but there are aspects that cause us real concern. We do not know how this would be implemented or the difficulties it would cause into the future.

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