Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State cannot but be moved when he hears stories like those recounted by Deputy Eoghan Murphy and Deputy Regina Doherty. Parents will know that one of the nicest things is to be able to cook for one's children. These mothers, fathers and children have been stripped away from their home place and what they know because they were in fear of their lives.

Are we saying we do not believe these people? I know I would not choose to live in one room and to have food given to me that I could not give my children. Children are finicky eaters. There is not a mother in Ireland who does not try to coax her child with one food or another. A mother in a direct provision centre does not have that luxury. If the child does not eat, he or she goes hungry. The Minister of State knows this. The malnutrition of children in the centres has been written about and reported on by the Irish Refugee Council.

Have we learned nothing as a country? We have another institution that is creaking along. I am very glad that Deputy Pringle has tabled this motion. The Labour Party has spoken about this matter before. Now that we are in government, I am glad the Minister of State has been given responsibility for addressing this issue, along with his colleague the Minister, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald. I welcome what the Minister of State is doing regarding the round-table discussions and reporting on how we can fix the system as a whole. However, in the here and now, there are practices that the Government can no longer stand over.

Deputy Doherty told a story about the welfare of a very ill child being played with as if in a game of ping-pong between the people trying to run the centre and the woman trying to rear him on her own in a foreign country away from her family. Such people come to my clinic every week. I refer to people who are in absolute turmoil because they do not know what is happening from week to week. Not only do they fear being returned to their own countries, but they live in fear here because they do not know when the knock will come on their door. They do not know how to plan for the weeks ahead. This brings instability to a parent and it manifests itself in the children in that they become shy, withdrawn and unable to cope in school. The children were born in Ireland and we owe them and their families an immediate solution to the kind of carry-on that is evident right around the country.

When I refer to families, I include single men, who are often placed in big, bulging hostels. There is one in my constituency on the quay in Waterford. There are men from all over the world put into dormitory-style accommodation. Some suffer from mental health difficulties and abuse alcohol, while others do not. They live in fear. They come to my office saying they have not slept in weeks. This is no way to treat anybody who comes to our shores looking for help.

As with Deputy Murphy, I have seen the transformation that happens when somebody in direct provision receives a red passport with a harp on the front of it. These people have so much to offer and bring to our society and communities. They are doing so already. I do not need to be convinced of that, nor does anybody. They enrich our communities and society. I echo Deputy Murphy's call for an amnesty. As a Government, we need to close direct provision once and for all and have an amnesty for those are caught in a system of our making. Although we were not in government when the system was introduced, we are now. My God, we had better do something about it.

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