Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not know where to start. I have lived beside a direct provision centre in my home parish for the best part of 23 years. We have always been welcoming to migrants from all over the world, and who have settled well and integrated into our community. I would like to bring some balance to the debate. I have been listening upstairs, and listening to the latest speech from the Sinn Féin representative opposite. A lot of it is about peddling blame, and I get that is the job of Opposition. I get that it has to call the Government to account. However, I bring the Deputy's attention to an incident in Cork last week, in St. Dominic's Centre in Mayfield, where a protest was mounted by, if I am honest, a couple of hundred people. The following day, one of the local Sinn Féin representatives went on radio to castigate the Government for its lack of information, consultation and the usual. I agree with him on that. What I did not agree with was the complete lack of criticism for the four busloads of people bussed from outside the area to protest. I do not agree that there was no criticism of the fact this facility was being earmarked for IPAS residents. In fact, it was being earmarked for Ukrainian families. Again, there was no criticism of the fact that it was IPAS more than anything. We need to be fair on this, and speak out on it as public representatives. When people arrive to our shores, whether through an airport, a port, or through Belfast, they have certain legal entitlements and are entitled to due process. If anyone wants to read about the rights of these people I advise them to consult the 1951 Refugee Convention, the UNHCR and various EU legislation and the conventions contained within that. We have obligations. When people arrive they are entitled to due process. Some are returned to their countries of origin. Some are allowed to stay. Some are allowed work and some integrate over time. There is very little of that happening in public discourse, and that is disappointing.

One thing I do agree with people in the Opposition ranks is about is the lack of information. I will give one example from the Mayfield situation last week. I could not get an answer from the Department about that facility for approximately eight days. I tried numerous sources. I found out afterwards when it was too late, that it was being assessed for Ukrainian families and not IPAS as was being rumoured. As I said it took eight days and at that point the barricades had been mounted and opposition to the proposal had happened. I subsequently found out that all that had happened was the owner of that property went on to a portal and registered that he would like his property assessed for some type of accommodation. Nothing else happened. It was left sitting there for six months in the cloud or on a portal, and very little physical intervention happened. Nobody came to inspect the site or anything like that. The rumour mill started ramping up, and people were bussed in - four busloads were brought in that evening. That was most unwelcome. I would like to think this debate will be constructive. We need to be straight with people, communicate with people and be upfront with what additional measures we are taking and how we will integrate these people into communities. As I said, I have lived beside a direct provision centre for the best part of 20 years and people there have always integrated well into the community. I only met with them three weeks before Christmas and 70% of them are working. That is often lost on people.

I also mention one or two other issues, which go back to that direct provision centre I live near. There is a mix of people who have status and can stay in the country, and a number of people who are due to be processed. What I found most uncomfortable, and I have spoken to some Ministers about this, is that some of those people and families were due to move to other parts of the country. They will leave Cork where, as I have said, 70% of them are working, some are attending third level, some had children in a local ASD class and there are 17 kids in a local school, which would lose a teacher if those families were moved. All of those things are going on in these settings. What I found most inhumane was that somebody from the direct provision centre - in that case the manager - could give somebody a letter and tell them they were moving in five days' time. That is a person in a college course or whose child is attending a school, and with five days' notice they can be expected to move, in this case, from Cork to County Westmeath. There is no guarantee of an ASD class for a special needs child, no guarantee of a job and no guarantee that the nursing degree the person is undertaking in University College Cork, UCC, can be transferred up the country. We need a system that is more humane and responsive to the needs of these people who are coming to be processed.

Information is key in this. I go back again to the situation in Mayfield. That arose because we did not provide information. I will hint at one last thing. There is a student accommodation block in Cork city at the moment. A story in the Irish Examiner has been running for two or three days over the past few weeks about the Government acquiring a €57 million building, which currently has students. As far as I know, just an interest has been registered. Nothing has been done about the feasibility of that, or of acquiring the building. If we plug the deficits in information, I think an awful lot of the hostility and anxiety people experience can be overcome.

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