Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

First, I thank the Fine Gael party for giving me the opportunity to table this motion. I also wish to thank the contributors from all sides of the House who contributed to this debate last night and this evening. I listened with interest last night to the Minister's contribution and heard about the promises of action and about future reports and promised legislation. Sadly, what is needed is action now because Ireland's asylum system is a soft touch for human traffickers. Ireland's asylum system for both adults and children is being exploited by criminal gangs who are using it to groom women for the sex industry and as holding pens for child traffickers. This fact is backed up by the official figures from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on suspected victims of human trafficking, which show the Government believes that 70% of all the potential victims are either children in HSE care or asylum seekers. The position on the ground is very different to the impression given in the Chamber by the Minister last night. Instead of addressing the issue, Government policy is fuelling the existing problem.

I wish to refute the Minister's perfect image of Reception and Integration Agency, RIA, accommodation. While it is difficult to gain access to them, I have visited some of these centres as a public representative. I have met people in such centres, many of whom are clinically depressed. They must wait for weeks, months and years for a decision from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. There are reports from NGOs on the victims of trafficking that refer to the distress they are going through, such as an inability to eat food, the lack of privacy in such centres, everyone knowing their business, no personal space and being obliged to share rooms with at least three other strangers. Such people cannot sleep at night and cannot even cry. The hostels are known to traffickers as easy places for prey as they contain many vulnerable women in a single location.

I refer to the disgraceful treatment of separated children. No words can exist to describe adequately the horror of the trafficking of children for sexual or labour exploitation. The Minister did not include in his speech that up to the end of August this year, the HSE hostels have lost five children every single month, all bar four of whom are still missing. Some of them have not even made it on to the Garda missing persons website. In April 2008, the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Brian Lenihan, told me he intended to raise this issue with the Health Service Executive. The Minister of State told me in this Chamber in February 2009 that the issue has attracted a high level of concentration on the part of the Government. Previously this evening, the Minister of State stated that one cannot draw a connection between the missing children and trafficking. However, based on his own Department's figures, one in five-----

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