Mr. Brian Killoran:

It is fair to say that while Ireland does not have an organised right-wing sentiment or party in respect of racism and xenophobia, I agree with Deputy Crowe that there are elements which one might call a disorganised right and there are certain opinions which we see in our anti-racism work. Although we have weathered a difficult economic situation, the opinions around migration remain very positive. There are two main ways to impress on the public the benefits of migration in general. From a cultural point of view, migration is a success story for Ireland and a sign of a healthy country. We have come to a stage where we celebrate our new citizens through the citizenship ceremonies. This is a massively positive manifestation of how we see the changing diversity in Ireland.

The biggest gap between facts and public opinion is on matters such as the economic benefits of migration and, as Mr. Sutherland set out succinctly, these are proven again and again in Ireland and across Europe through deep and exhaustive research and campaigning by organisations such as ours. Whether that is translated into public opinion is questionable. Much of the time we repeat the message but the Government needs to take that on board too and say it is not that we do not talk about migration but that we talk about it in a positive way and show the benefits. It is really important to impress on people that the complexities of immigration are very difficult for lay people to get their heads around.

It is important to recognise that in the present situation many of those we talk about are programme refugees, not necessarily people coming into the asylum process here to spend possibly years going through a determination process and ending up in direct provision and so on. Programme refugees are entitled to work. They can use their skills and abilities to contribute to Irish society, the economy and our development. Many people do not recognise that when they consider immigration status. They do not know the difference between someone with student status or in the asylum process and someone with refugee status. It is important to be very clear about how Ireland would receive people in these circumstances.

There is also a question of values. Even though we have gone through economic difficulty, we must not lose our humanity, our long and strong tradition on humanitarian issues, and we must show that we will do what is necessary and play our part, which will be proportionate. No one is saying it has to be disproportionate. Some of the questioners mentioned that there cannot be an open door policy. No one in our contributions, or those of any organisations that talk about immigration here or at European level, is talking about open door policies. We are talking about legal channels that allow people a path to a very secure situation. Those can vary. They can be student status, work permit status or, for example, the Syrian humanitarian access programme whereby family members of Syrian nationals were allowed to apply to come to Ireland. The time and numbers were quite limited. Approximately 110 people were granted access. That is an example of using the discretion within the immigration system to come up with a way to allow people a clear channel to enter the country. We refused maybe two thirds of applications for economic reasons, for the most part because the people did not have enough finance to support themselves. That puts an economic lens on a humanitarian issue but it is an example of the type of thing we can do. There is no reason a scheme such as that could not be revisited or expanded. We have the ability to do that.