Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The reality for an awful lot of communities throughout the country is that the first time they hear an asylum centre will open is very soon before it happens. There is no preparation from the point of view of providing services. That is the big issue I come across everywhere I go. People are concerned. All three Ministers mentioned in their contributions how much work is going into integration and I acknowledge that. There is work going into integration to try to assist people to get language classes and so on. That is for the people who come from other countries, who do have needs. The people who are already here are in intense competition, which is the problem we have, for services that are very scarce. That is where the anger comes from. People live in communities where there are children on waiting lists to see a psychologist because the child has autism and they cannot get services so they have to pay for it themselves. There are people who find they have huge issues with everything, including health services, education services. Then they hear another 300 people are coming. We have an obligation to welcome and help those people when they come and to provide places for them. However, we also have an obligation to ensure we put services in for everybody and to ensure everybody wins from this situation.

Unfortunately, a small number of very narrow-minded, devious people who are using this for their own ends. The right-wing element is continually trying to cause division among communities and among people. We have to stand firmly against all of that, of course, but we also have to stand for something. We have to stand for appropriate services. We have to stand to ensure people get what they deserve, everywhere.

In an awful lot of communities that asylum seekers joined, they improved those communities. The fears were found to be totally ill-founded. I know that in my own community. Nobody has any problems with people who came to Ballinamore and nobody has any problems with people who came to other places. Yet, we continue to hear these negative stories being spread and put up in different places around the country. Unfortunately, because people are concerned they have waited so long to get adequate services for things they need for themselves, they are very easily brought down this road that these very devious, narrow-minded, right-wing people are opening up for them. We have to fight against that. Sometimes I think given the way things have been done in the past couple of years, that the Government has done a great service to the far right in this country. It has provided ample ground for the far right to be able to spread its nonsense and for people to be able to buy into it. That is a big responsibility we all share to ensure we stop that.

Primarily, it is the Government that has put the services in place. The Minister spoke about what the Government intends to do now. Four or five years ago I sat on the justice committee and we had the report from Mr. Justice McMahon and the report from Dr. Catherine Day. We had all of the things we were going to do but nothing was done. Now we find ourselves in this situation so the Government has to take a little responsibility and recognise that the failings that have occurred are failings of Government.

Housing is the biggest issue. The problem we have with housing is we have people in different towns around the country who have family members who cannot rent a house or get the housing assistance payment, HAP. There is nothing available. They then see a building being prepared and think that it may be perhaps turned into five, six or ten apartments and that their relative will get an apartment. They then discover the building is to be used for direct provision or for Ukrainian people to stay in, which is fine. We have no problem with that but the difficulty is that it causes a huge problem to those people who find the competition for the services they need is being intensified so much that it is driving them crazy and opens them up to all of these deviant people out there whom we all have to stand against. The Minister may come and say, "We are making great progress", but the reality for people on the ground is that they see very little of that progress and that needs to change.

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