Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I am grateful to have an opportunity to discuss this. To be clear, immigration is a good thing. Immigration is a thing our country needs. We are a stronger, better country as a result of immigration, whether that is in our public services, the private sector, the education system with students coming in, or in our communities. Diversity and inclusion are core parts of being Irish. That is the Ireland I know. This is a Department and this is a Government that delivered an undocumented scheme, which was widely welcomed, providing a legal pathway to people who were here and were undocumented for many years. This is a Government - Deputy Ó Ríordáin was a part of it at the time, that brought in citizenship ceremonies. It went from somebody sitting down the back of the District Court with somebody up for some anti-social behaviour matter and thinking they might get called up to the judge to get a piece of paper, to a proper citizenship ceremony now. I look forward to one of them again in March, I think. This a country which, and I think the world has really let down Afghanistan, when other countries did not step up to the plate, put in place an Afghan admission programme. It is the policy of the Government and the Department of Justice and, I believe, the express wish of the overwhelming majority of the people's representatives in both Houses of the Oireachtas, to support people fleeing persecution and to provide people with shelter and safety here. There is no doubt about that. I refuse to call some of what we have seen in recent weeks on some occasions protests. It irks me when they are called protests because some of what we have seen has been thuggish, mobbish and intimidatory behaviour. When you are standing outside what is somebody's home or shelter, including children, and shouting, "Get them out", and worse, that is not protest in my view or in the view of any decent person of sound mind.

As Minister for Justice, I am beyond aware and acutely attuned to some of the individuals behind these protests and some people who move from town to town and county to county trying to stoke up division and fear. There is a world of difference between somebody in a local community seeking information, and better information, from Government - which I will get to in a moment - with that of thuggish, far-right behaviour. The two should never be conflated and I do not think anyone here did. There is no place for it. It is that which motivates me to push back against the lies and misinformation of the far-right in relation to our rules-based migration system. I am duty-bound, as Minister for Justice, to administer our rules-based system. I am not going to sit quietly at home staring at the wall when I see people on social media and other places saying, "Sure there are no deportation orders in Ireland, that never happens in Ireland. We do not fingerprint anyone coming into the country. There is no discussion with the airlines". I am going to do what any responsible centrist politician should do in this country and not allow a vacuum to appear.

We have a rules-based system and a fair, compassionate system. We have managed, as a country, to welcome many more and shelter more than 70,000 people, which was quite a phenomenal national effort. It has not been without challenge. It is important and I genuinely feel duty-bound as Minister for Justice to explain to the Irish people that what the far-right tells them is a load of baloney and is put out there to cause fear. There are deportation orders in every country in the world that operates a migration system. They are in place and they are happening. There are discussions with airlines and checks regarding documents. There can be reasons why people come without documents; the Taliban is not giving out passports, not to be too flippant. There are reasons. There are also legal obligations to have documents when getting on airlines and not everyone is coming from a country that is not giving out documents.

We need to have a balanced approach. I am not suggesting the Deputy did, but I would ask that nobody suggests that a Department of Justice and Minister for Justice outlining and assuring people that there are processes and safeguards in place is a bad thing to do. If I do not do it and we just walk off the pitch, we will allow - we will not name them but we know their names - a small handful of individuals who will decide to misinform the Irish people instead. That was my motivation.

We have a fair, compassionate, rules-based system. I did not hear the Deputy criticise this at all, but I have heard some criticism about the speeding up of the system. I think it was Deputy Kenny who asked me to give an assurance on this, which is valid. I have heard the UNHCR talk about how accelerated processes and more efficient systems can be a good thing. I have heard migrants' rights groups, including one woman from Deputy Daly's constituency on Virgin Media, talking about how it is in the interest of somebody fleeing persecution and their family to have that certainty. We are trying to get to a system where people get quicker decisions. That is in everybody's interest. We are massively ramping up. Deputy Farrell is right, we need to do a lot more to get the IPO where it needs to go. It made more decisions last year than the Catherine Day report recommended it would need to make. I thank the men and women working in the IPO for their diligence. They are getting a lot more colleagues now; they have seen a 55% increase in their staffing since 2019, the last comparable year. I heard assertions about International Protection Appeals Tribunal, IPAT, staffing being down by 8%; that is a reduction, I think, of singular-digit numbers of administrative staff. My Secretary General met IPAT last week. IPAT has capacity within its current staffing to do 2,300 cases; they have 850 on hand. There will not be a constraint on resourcing the IPO, IPAT or staffing; certainly not a financial one. We will do everything we possibly can to properly staff that. We will not take any shortcuts or cut any corners, to Deputy Kenny's point, in terms of people's human rights. They will have the same rights and processes as anybody else, it will just be done in a more time-efficient manner.

On the information flow, I agree with the Deputy's party leader. I heard Deputy Bacik at the weekend talking about the need for a mechanism - I do not wish to speak for Deputy Bacik - I thought I heard her say there was a need for a mechanism where Government and Opposition work more closely to be able to get information out there. I do not profess to be all-knowing in relation to this. Exactly how that works, whether it is caucuses, committees, or whatever is above my pay grade. I do not think there is a political party in Dáil Éireann that buys into or subscribes - certainly not a party anyway - to the views of that small number of people engaging in thuggish, mobbish behaviour. The more we can come together to provide information, to give each other information and have a flow of information is a good thing. In fairness to colleagues across Government, we have all been responding in an emergency situation where things are fast-moving and fast-evolving. I also accept we have to get beyond saying that and must get a structure in place that provides better information to colleagues so they can then provide it to the public. I know this is getting a lot of attention and focus in Government as to how best to do that. It is important that political parties stay united and unified in calling out the misinformation of the far-right. A part of that - we may agree or disagree - is that we have a rules-based system and pushing back on any assertion that we do not. At the end of the day, that is my specific job within Government; others have others.