Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber. I thank the Fine Gael Senators for tabling this motion and for giving us the opportunity to have a debate about the real issues at play. In the hope of not being constantly hounded for qualifications to my following statement, here they are all in front of the House. Racism is abhorrent. Violence is wrong. Crime should be punished.

With that out of the way I will quickly run through a few points. The Taoiseach's statement yesterday that it is not right to connect immigration with crime is ridiculous. Not all immigrants are created equal and an immigration policy that does not recognise this will end in disaster and tragedy. We do not record crime statistics by ethnicity because to do so would offend liberal sensibilities. Other European countries do. The Dutch do. They have done so for ten years and here is what they have found. Individuals from non-western immigration backgrounds make up 14% of the population in the Netherlands. However, they commit 40% of all crimes and violent assaults. Populations from Africa or the Middle East tend to exhibit rates two to four times higher than native Dutch. In both Germany and Spain, the suspect rate of Algerian immigrants is ten times that of natives. In Italy it is 17 times that of natives. Ireland has admitted the largest group of Algerian asylum seekers in the world. Asking us not to connect crime to immigration is asking us to ignore reality. These are official statistics published by other EU governments. They are factual. Is sharing them hate speech? I fear that under the Minister's new Bill sharing them might be investigated as such.

I have long said this Government would rather receive a pat on the back from Brussels than a clap on the back from the Irish. Often we need serious issues in this country to attract the attention of the international media before the Government will do anything about them, because the Government only listens to the media. It does not listen to the people. Now Ireland has the eyes of the world on it and they are poised to see how this country is being turned into a post-democratic EU vassal state, which is about to pass censorship legislation, the likes of which we have never seen in the West so the Government will be protected from criticism by the people it is elected to govern. Perhaps that will give it pause for thought, but I will not hold my breath. For now, we will do the best we can.

This morning the Minister accused the Opposition in the Dáil of having no solutions. Here are quite a few that would solve our problems. We need an asylum processing centre at Dublin Airport. It should be a fully equipped facility with dedicated judges, clerks and civil servants. People who come to the country and seek asylum should be processed there within seven days of arrival. If they are accepted, all good. If they are found against, they should be put on the first plane home. That would take time. In the meantime, applicants should be summoned to court to have the results of their applications for the right to remain handed down to them. If they are accepted, all good. If permission is denied, they should be taken to a Garda station, put in custody and on the first plane home. No more self-service deportation orders. The Minister is in charge of the Department of Justice, not Tesco. There should be massive fines for airlines that do not meet highly stringent criteria for the checking of travel documents and ensuring legality of travel for passengers. Even if we cannot trust the Government, we can always trust companies to protect their bottom lines. At the moment, the fine is €3,000. We should increase the figure to €15,000 and we will see how many breach the rules on checking documents. The Minister wants to put rioters and looters in prison. What prison? All of them are full. Our new prison, Thornton Hall, needs to be built as soon as possible.

If the Government does anything less than this, it is not serious about law and order. I understand that Commissioner Drew Harris brought 12 PSNI officers with him when he took up the post. Let us get more. What a great shared island initiative that would be. Some members of the PSNI who live in the Republic of Ireland would welcome a transfer to An Garda Síochána. If we are having difficulty in recruiting people, the Government should give them the option. If we can borrow water cannons from the North, we can surely take some of their officers and personnel. The Government should give the rank and file officers of the PSNI an opportunity to transfer to An Garda Síochána if they wish. It would be a brilliant shared island initiative.

I also call on the Minister to put in place some financial supports for the private businesses that were victims of the riots last week.The Government should also provide victim support and counselling for the students and teachers, for all of those members of businesses who had to hide in closets behind closed doors that night, and for any member of our emergency services who was psychologically affected by last Thursday's events.

There are many ways we could handle this. I do not have time to go through everything that could be done but none of it will be done because this Government cannot see beyond the end of its nose. It behaves as if it is mentally incapable of foresight. It can only ever react, never be proactive. I reject this motion, not because I do not want to see anything done, but because I know this Government will never do what needs to be done.