Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Halligan for giving me a minute of his time and I especially thank Deputy Pringle for bringing forward this Private Members' motion. Some years ago, I visited one of these direct provision centres and I was crushed to see what was there. It was an affront to human rights, an affront to human liberty, an affront to human dignity and it has to stop. It really has to stop. It is wrong to ask people who have already been so disadvantaged and crushed to live in a timeless vacuum, with the loss of dignity and all those things to which I have just alluded. It is just plain wrong. I was deeply saddened by it and I have not forgotten it, and that was a few years ago.

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