Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Immigration for most of the 20th century was not a major issue for Ireland. Through the decades when this country was a failed economic entity, the preoccupation was with emigration. Fifty years ago, between 1956 and 1961, net emigration represented a loss of 212,003 persons, significantly more than the entire population of Limerick. Even as recently as 1986 to 1991, we lost 134,170 people to outward migration. Emergency legislation introduced in 1935 still constitutes the statutory cornerstone of our immigration policy. It would be stretching credulity to call what we have an immigration policy.

The deficit has been dramatically exposed since the 1990s when inward migration to Ireland became a reality. The inward flow of people accelerated following the addition in 2004 of ten new accession countries to the European Union. The numbers wildly exceeded official predictions. However, the prospect of an unending flow of educated young people as a rich source of cheap labour caused euro signs to dazzle even those who, in other circumstances, might be more cautious about, or some of them even resistant to, the sudden explosion in inward numbers. Strain and stresses on infrastructure, schools and hospitals took second place to the appetite for largely uninvigilated cheap labour. At the same time our hospitals in particular have been significantly reliant on migrant labour.

Meanwhile the then Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment was touring the world as part of an agency roadshow to attract labour from regions as far flung as Newfoundland and South Africa. Thus inward migration from outside the European Union also increased in the search for employment and improved life chances in Ireland. To cope with all this our public sector had to make it up as it went along. This ad hoc approach added to the confusion in the public mind as to the distinction between immigration and asylum, between citizens of the European Union who are entitled to seek work here and people from outside the European Union and European economic area who are economic migrants on the one hand and on the other hand asylum seekers seeking sanctuary in this country. The then Minister of State, Liz O'Donnell, described her Government's policy in this latter area as "a shambles".

There were, and are, inordinate delays in decision making, inconsistent decisions, lack of clarity, lack of transparency in procedures and over reliance on the courts to sort out the mess. A seemingly deliberate policy of last minute out-of-court settlements contributes to the lack of transparency and raises serious questions about the fairness of the system.

Between 2002 and 2006, net inward migration was 191,331 persons. According to census 2006 there were 413,223 non-Irish nationals usually resident in the State, or 10% of the population. Of these, 271,974 or 66% are EU citizens; 6% are from the rest of Europe; 34,564 or 9% are African; 46,064 or 11% are Asian and 5% are from the Americas.

The Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill 2008 is therefore long awaited and sets for itself the objective of setting out a legislative framework for the management of inward migration to Ireland. That the Bill is finally before the House is welcome, but how well it meets its objective is disputed.

The principal legislation governing the entry and residence of non-nationals is the Aliens Act 1935 and the orders made under it, as amended or re-enacted. The only substantive amendment to our laws since the 1930s was the Refugee Act 1996, which was at first ignored and then gutted. Its application is confined to those seeking asylum in the State owing to well-founded fears of persecution.

The legislation passed since 1996 has been driven by the need either to streamline our procedures for removing non-nationals from the State or to proof those procedures against constitutional challenge. It has had nothing to say, as Deputy Naughten has remarked, about who should be entitled to come here in the first place, outside of the asylum process.

Most people recognise that some of those who travel here and seek asylum are not in reality seeking sanctuary but are fleeing poverty and deprivation, in search of a new and better life for themselves and their families. They are seeking the same opportunities that countless Irish people have sought abroad for generations.

It is clear that the current system favours neither the genuine asylum seeker nor the economic immigrant. By "genuine", I mean an asylum seeker whose case fits the relatively narrow criteria for recognition set out in the 1951 Geneva Convention. The failure to tackle this problem also costs the taxpayer. Those who wait for their cases to be dealt with often wait more than a year, during which time they cannot work and must be supported by the State. Members of this House encounter difficulty and frustration in trying to even access meaningful information on individual cases.

Equally, on the immigration side, it is clear that the current work permit system is not working. There is considerable administration involved, the system is not flexible and it leaves immigrant workers, as has already been remarked, open to exploitation.

The current approach has left us with an expensive, ineffective and unfair mismatch. There is no speedy, fair or effective system for processing economic migrants, many of whom are prepared to work hard to make a valuable contribution to our society. On the other hand, the procedures for claiming asylum are clogged up with many economic migrants. This causes delay and additional costs and is ultimately unfair to asylum seekers whose cases have a real prospect of being recognised as valid.

Since the former Progressive Democrats Minister of State, Liz O'Donnell, described the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats coalition's policy on asylum seekers as a "shambles", little has been done to tackle the issue of how we treat our asylum seekers and refugees and nothing at all has been done to introduce any rational, fair or effective policy for people who wish to immigrate to our country to work.

Imagine the reaction that I or any other Member of the House would have got from the Minister or from his Department if I alleged that there was bias in appeals brought before the Refugee Appeals Tribunal. I would have been brushed off. We were brushed off——

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