Mr. Ger Deering:

I definitely agree that in an ideal world we would benefit from more consultation, but I have seen at first hand the pressure the organisations that are trying to find accommodation are under to get accommodation. I would have a certain sympathy where the alternative is to simply give people a tent and tell them to go somewhere rather than having to bring them into a centre quickly.

The Senator mentioned what somebody said to him. The suggestion that these people are somehow rapists is outrageous. Even if anybody wanted to study the area of abuse, the vast majority of abuse is carried out by people whom people know - the members of their own family.

It is unhelpful that the term "single men" has been used because we do not know if they are even single men. They could be married men who have come ahead, like so many Irish people did, as the Senator mentioned. When the economic circumstances did not permit here because there were no jobs, fathers would go abroad and earn money and they would return at the weekend or maybe not for some time.

I share the Senator's view of this demonisation of the term "economic migrant". It somehow now has a very negative currency whereas the Senator is right in saying Irish people went all over the world as economic migrants to work. Indeed, they are still going abroad. They are not even economic migrants now in the sense that they have just decided to have a different experience.

We have very different labels we put on people who come to the country and who leave the country, even down to how we sometimes refer to people here as being illegal. If it is an Irish person in the United States, they are undocumented. Language is important in how we deal with and treat people.

I would not be critical, to be honest, of the lack of consultation in the current situation. What I would be critical of is the lack of planning, planning that should have happened before. There are State resources. We look at Crooksling. There are 150 acres out there. That has not been used for a number of years. We look at Thornton Hall in State ownership for 20 years. It is the lack of planning that has led us to where we are. I also worry that some of the decisions made have more to do with discouraging people than anything else.

These are my concerns. I have a real concern, and I am beyond sad and upset, to see the canal being fenced the whole way. I wonder how much of the city we are to fence off. How much are we to pay for all of these fences and fencing off the city instead of putting it into accommodation and accommodating people?