Ms Áine Ní Chonaill:

We have made it very clear both from the point of view of first principles and also for fiscal reasons, which nobody has mentioned, that we absolutely oppose regularisation. The committee has before it a supplementary sheet which highlights the Government response every time regularisation is mentioned, namely, that member states agreed the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum at the European Council in October 2008, which made specific commitments to use only case-by-case regularisation rather than generalised regularisation under national law. It is considered problematic to do otherwise. One of the ways of dealing with illegal immigration, particularly in ensuring it does not go further, is to make it very clear that a particular jurisdiction will not be granting amnesties. The problem is not that granting regularisation tomorrow would lead to people in Africa or Asia saying, "Oh, the Irish have granted regularisation, let us head over there." Rather, it is that in the medium to long term, the message goes out from European countries - and we do not want to be among the number sending that message - that people who become illegal immigrants, stick around for long enough and manage to stay under the radar will wear the authorities down because it is the latter who will blink first. That is what this is about; these people know the authorities will turn around in this sort of situation and say, "Oh, look, we really must let them stay." They know they will wear the authorities down and it is they who will blink first.