Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 8, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following: “(b) to provide land for the provision of accommodation for those in the asylum application process”.

It is possibly a similar discussion to the one we have just had. The appalling accommodation regime that has been in place for people seeking asylum in our State is well documented. Large numbers of people, many fleeing wars, persecution and economic devastation, come to our country seeking asylum. We are a country that has had that experience ourselves. There is probably not a generation of the families of any member of this committee which did not at some point in the 19th or 20th century have to leave Ireland for similar reasons. Being a nation of emigrants, it surprises me that we have had such a poor State response to accommodating people who come here seeking asylum.

I acknowledge that, for the first time in 20 years, there is a programme for Government commitment to addressing this issue. I also acknowledge the important work the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy Roderic O'Gorman, has done in bringing forward a plan for bringing an end to direct provision and providing a human rights-compliant own-door accommodation system for people on a temporary basis while they wait for their asylum applications to be processed.

The key is in the implementation, and that brings me to this amendment. The primary responsibility for transitioning to a human rights-compliant accommodation system for people applying for asylum will not rest with the Land Development Agency. However, given that the agency is being set up to do large-scale residential developments at the direct delivery end and the planning end, it should also have a legal obligation to consider how it can best play a role in assisting the relevant Department and State agencies in what will be a very challenging task in the years ahead. If it is not in this legislation, it will not happen.

We have many amendments so, to progress the debate more quickly, if the Minister was willing, as he was with the last, to give an undertaking to examine the issue, discuss it with his colleague, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and consider a Government amendment on Report Stage, I would be happy to withdraw this amendment. Given the scale of the development the Minister is promising under this legislation, I think it would be a real missed opportunity to ensure human rights-compliant own door accommodation for people in the asylum system. To allow them to live with dignity in a traumatic system would be the right thing to do. There needs to be in this section of the Bill an explicit commitment to play a role in this.