Ms Edel McGinley:

We met with the Minister under the previous Administration and we had a long conversation on the issue. She recommended that we work with the Department of Justice and Equality to develop proposals on it. That has been done and was concluded last year. Our proposal is with the Minister. We have sought meetings with her under this Administration but we have not been given one yet. We also sought meetings with the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, but we have not secured any either. That is surprising in some respects.

With regard to the space afforded to the issue, the humanitarian crisis is something the State has had to deal with and there has been much focus on that, which is right. We support all the efforts to respond to that issue.

There is much commitment to this and I am not sure if the Minister wants to do a comprehensive scheme. That has always been the communication to us. There has been communication around case-by-case regularisation and this is what we are proposing. I suppose we really need support from this committee, with the Minister. We also know there is a good deal of support at Cabinet level on the issue. It is just about moving it forward in a practical and pragmatic way over the next few months. We must bring this in within the next six months and there is a time-sensitive aspect to this and its implementation. We are proposing a fair and pragmatic approach and it is not very burdensome from an administrative perspective. The proposals are worked out, in some respects, but this needs political will behind it. That is where both Houses will come into it. We need to push this along at a political level.