Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I, too, congratulate Deputy Pringle and strongly support the motion, which puts forward an immediate solution to this issue, which is a human rights-based, humane approach to an issue which has been ignored for far too long. The nonsense that used to be put forward that Ireland is an island of a thousand welcomes has certainly long been exposed. We are a country which has been quite happy over generations to send our young and our poor people to the ends of the earth because this country was not prepared to provide them with a decent standard of living. We were quite happy to send women who had children outside marriage as outcasts to other countries and expect those people to be taken in there. We expected our citizens, whom we were not prepared to look after, to be welcomed with open arms on other shores. We would hear it constantly said, "Sure everybody loves the Irish, isn't it great? Aren't we the people who built Britain? We're great workers", and all the rest. When people come here trying to earn a living for themselves and make a better life for their families, however, it is an entirely different matter.

It used to be said there was never any racism in Ireland, and there was not when there were no people from other countries who wanted to come to live here. Once they did, that situation quickly changed. The attitude of the State and the policies put in place by the State have been a huge contributor to that situation, primarily through the denial of people's right to work.

I believe the issues are much more starkly posed when we look at the scenario being faced by refugees and asylum seekers. Points have been made by other Deputies about the obstacles such people have to overcome - the horror in their own country causing them to flee here. They see Ireland as a safe haven, somewhere to build a new future. However, the decision to come to Ireland can have devastating consequences. This is graphically illustrated in the case of women in particular. Women are often held in direct provision centres in close proximity, for example, to an abusive partner from whom they cannot get away. Women and girls who are pregnant and seeking asylum in Ireland, as Niall Behan from the Irish Family Planning Association said, find themselves at the intersection of two state systems that deny them basic human dignity: the direct provision system, on the one hand, and our lack of abortion, on the other, both of which have been criticised by human rights bodies as violating human rights, causing discrimination and the stigmatising of people.

That was graphically exposed in the case of Miss Y, who was a resident in a direct provision centre. One would have to ask whether, had she been given access to greater support in the community, the outcome would have been different. It is the case that, because of that restriction, people have been forced to parent in a direct provision or reception centre. It is just not good enough.

The figures are available. Thousands of people, almost 2,000 of them children, are in temporary accommodation which was intended for six months but in which they have been living for an average of four years, in many cases for seven years and in some cases for ten years. Children are growing up in these places. Imagine spending four years out of work with no possibility of getting a job. Imagine trying to raise children on €19 with no possibility of that situation being bettered. Imagine overcoming all the sacrifices to become a victim in a society which keeps one isolated.

It is a system of State-sponsored poverty and is unjust. I do not see what we need to review. The facts are clear. Deputy Pringle has outlined the way in which we need to deal with it so we just need to implement that because all of the human rights bodies have pinpointed the detrimental effects on the health and psychology of children and adults who have lived in that situation. It is the same as the institutions of the past. It is a modern-day Magdalen laundry. Should we not be consistent? We have had all these redress schemes for the damage done to people who were institutionalised in the past. If we want to end that now, we must give an amnesty and allow people the right to work.

From a legal standpoint, depriving people of the right to work does constitute a violation of their privacy and right to family life. We lost an opportunity to address it in the Refugee Act 1996. We must deal with that issue now because the right to earn an income is not just about the extra income, it is about self-respect and integrating with other people. It has a social value far beyond a monetary one. One has a win-win situation here even while people are being decried as coming into this country as freeloaders. The State prevents them from working and then everybody blames them for not working. Meanwhile the attention is taken off the real people who caused the problem in the first place - the bank bailout, the speculators and the gamblers whose debts are being transferred on to the shoulders of everybody. It is a great diversion.

We should be welcoming more people here. We should be welcoming the diversity that this brings. In 2009, we resettled two prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. At the moment, there are 79 low-risk prisoners who have been awaiting release for years because the Americans will not allow them to be released into the US. We should take more. We have nothing to be afraid of. One would think that a country called the island of saints and scholars would be glad to invite people here and give them refuge and a safe haven. What has been going on has to stop.

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