Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy seems to suggest that every individual who comes to Ireland without a visa, in violation of our immigration laws, and who is an economic migrant should be provided automatically with housing, social welfare payments, free education for their children and free health care. If the Deputy wants between 50,000 and 100,000 economic migrants to descend into this State in circumstances in which the State must meet all these financial obligations, will he identify where the resources will come from to provide for that? What we have is a duty - which I believe is hugely important - to ensure that where an individual is genuinely in need of asylum or protection, the State provides that protection. We have a system that extends that to them and that deals with matters with reasonable speed and allows them to live in the wider community. However, we also have an obligation to everyone who lives in the State to ensure that our systems are not abused.

I agree with the Deputy that the production of the legislation has taken an undue length of time, but we will see it in 2014. The delay in producing it has been as a result of the obligations on the State to implement various other legislative measures which have had to be given priority in the Office of the Attorney General.

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