Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 6 February 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

International Protection (Family Reunification) (Amendment) Bill 2017: Discussion

Photo of Mick WallaceMick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. We are unlikely to fight with them given that we are on the same side. We will save the fight for the Government. I have to leave shortly for agriculture questions and ask that when I leave it is not taken as disrespect. We are very interested as a committee in this issue and have been very involved with it. Deputy Clare Daly and I have been to the camps in France and visited Syria twice. We have also been to Iraq and Lebanon. I do not want to bore the witnesses. While I will make a couple of points, we came here to listen to them. It is very good to hear what they have had to say. It will be taken on board and used to the best of our ability to make things fairer.

Mr. Henderson spoke a great deal about money messages and went through the technical nature of that process. The truth of the matter is that they can do whatever they like. They can twist that money message around and make almost any decision. They can decide to apply the money message rule just about every time if they so feel. As Senator Black can explain, they even used the rule in the very first minute of their submission against her recent Bill in the Dáil, which is a complete nonsense. Our challenge is not to decipher and break down the money message, it is to break down their attitude and change their mind about how they see things. While some good things have happened, for which we are very grateful, and while the Department of Justice and Equality has made some good decisions, it is important to remember that it has been dragged kicking and screaming to this point. People will have seen that if they had been watching events here over the last few years.

The 4,000 figure is small but it has not even been reached. The obstacles to family reunification are unreasonable and do not stack up. I know a lot of the refugees for different reasons. I know one man from Afghanistan very well who is seeking family reunification but is probably not going to qualify. He saw his father, who was working for the Taliban, shot in front of him by the Americans. A couple of weeks later, the Taliban came for him. At 14, he was kidnapped and taken to their camp for training. He escaped and actually made his way to Ireland without money and landed in Dublin despite not even knowing that Ireland existed. It is just the way the lorries went. His mother is alive and he has two brothers aged 15 and 13 years for whom the Taliban are searching. They are in hiding. The notion that we should not help them is hard to defend. We know another kid from Afghanistan whose father was working for the Americans and who was shot by the Taliban in front of his son also. He left a mother and two sisters behind him and has had no contact with them since. It has now been a couple of years. Obviously, he would like family reunification, but it is not even possible for him to contact them. They have not been able to contact him either. Both these kids are 18.

We agree that a different attitude is required. Some points might have an impact on the Government. Considering that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights holds that the right to family life in Article 8 extends beyond the nuclear family to include grandparents, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and adult siblings, there is an argument to extend the definition of "eligible family member". Perhaps, it could be done along the lines of the IHAP eligibility requirements for those over 18 who cannot necessarily prove dependency. These are arguments we can make. The witnesses have made them, which is good. The International Protection Act 2015 was a serious rowing back on the provisions of the Refugee Act 1996, which allowed at the discretion of the Minister for any dependant to be eligible. That included any grandparent, parent, brother, sister, child, grandchild, ward or guardian of the refugee who was depending on the refugee or suffering from a mental or physical illness or disability to such an extent that it was not reasonable for him or her to maintain himself or herself fully.

There are many good reasons for us to take a different position and for the Government to be more accommodating of Senator Kelleher's Bill. Mr. Henderson and Ms Hurley made the point about the number of net contributors who come here, which is obvious. All of the kids I have met and some of the parents will, God help us and save us, contribute a great deal to this country. It is a no-brainer. Before my building company went bang, I was employing 85 eastern Europeans. There was a great deal of racism in the city at the time, but they were amazing. They had a very good attitude and the notion that they would not be welcome here is obvious nonsense. I am speaking to the converted saying that to the witnesses. It is a bit like the priest giving out about people not coming to mass to the ones who are there. We will work hard on our end to make the Bill happen. When Deputy Clare Daly was critical that Senator Kelleher's Bill did not go far enough, it was not a criticism of the Senator. We know that if one asks for too much, sometimes one gets nothing. We know we have to be very measured in what we seek. A great deal more should be sought, but we will take things one step at a time. I say "Well done" to Senator Kelleher.

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