Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Pringle for bringing this motion forward. It is long overdue that we have a discussion. For 14 years, we have had an indefensible and shameful system for dealing with vulnerable and poor people who have come to this country looking for refuge and help. Rather than give them refuge and help, we have imprisoned them in the most appalling circumstances and left them there with no hope. Most shamefully, we have allowed children to be brought up in these conditions - conditions that no parent in this House or anywhere in this country would tolerate for a second without screaming with outrage. Yet we have deemed it acceptable or have remained silent while this has continued for 14 years. Many children will never recover from the damage inflicted on them in these centres and not just kids. It is shocking that people are incarcerated in these situations; denied the right to work, integrate and participate meaningfully in society; starved of any sort of resources; and given a miserable €19. It is no wonder that depression, suicidal tendencies and mental health problems are rampant. Recently, we heard young women on the radio saying how they felt forced into prostitution in order to supplement the miserable amount of income they were given. Of course, a certain industry is building up around all of this for certain people - not all of the people - involved in direct provision. Certain people essentially see it as just a chance to make a profit. We have allowed this to go on until now and not acted upon it.

It is even more shameful and indefensible when one considers that there has been an acknowledgement that we committed a crime against single mothers, poor working-class children and people who lived in the mother and baby homes, Magdalen laundries and industrial schools and public apologies have been given. Yet we inflict the exactly the same system on poor people from other countries coming to this country looking for refuge and help. It is shameful beyond belief.

I welcome the tone of many speakers on the Government and Opposition side and some of the comments made by the Minister of State about the need to rectify this problem. I hope that with the expression of all that sentiment, we will solve this problem immediately because it cannot continue any longer. If we allow it to continue, we are allowing a criminal and immoral abuse of human rights - a theft of people's human rights - and the imprisonment of innocent people to continue. This is morally repugnant and indefensible so we must act. I hope the Minister of State and Government are committed to doing this.

There must be an amnesty for those who have been imprisoned in this system that everybody said was dysfunctional. We have all said here that this system was wrong and rotten. Therefore, we owe everybody in the system an apology and an amnesty as compensation for putting them through that suffering. That is a minimum requirement. Otherwise saying that it was wrong and that the system was dysfunctional but not then giving an amnesty to people who had to suffer this is a contradiction in terms. As a minimum, those who have been put through this system must get an amnesty. Otherwise we are punishing people who are innocent and whom we have failed.

We must say that institutionalised living - the system of direct provision - is totally unacceptable and must be abolished. We must give people who come to this country the right to work. If we have to assess their applications, they should be allowed to fully participate in society while this is being done so that they can contribute and so that no ammunition can be given to anybody who wants to claim that in some way they are sponging off the system - as obnoxious as that sentiment is. We must commit to abolishing direct provision and give asylum seekers the right to work, participate and integrate in our society.

One of the Fine Gael Deputies who acknowledged that we have to move in the direction of a reform asked whether this means we should have open borders. We have emigrated all over the world and even as it stands, the Irish State is fighting for the undocumented Irish in the US to have the right to stay and work there. How can we deny any less to the people who come here looking for asylum and to escape persecution or poverty? We should allow people to come here just as we have gone to other countries.

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