Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin, of course, will support the motion. However, I would like to make a number of comments and outline our ten-point plan, which we offer to the Minister and her senior officials for consideration as part of their deliberations, towards the end of my contribution.

This crisis is not a new one. A few years ago, I visited Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, which have been there for decades. They were taking in Palestinians from Syria. In other words, refugees were housing other refugees in appalling conditions. One of the buildings we visited had been bombed out by Israeli forces but refugees were living in it. Our delegation of parliamentarians from Ireland and Britain met officials from the UNHCR and UNRWA to discuss our concerns, which we also raised with EU representatives. This crisis has been going on, therefore, for quite a while. Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have taken in a huge number of refugees and they have taken on a massive burden in the context of this crisis. The Minister gave assurances that Ireland would ensure the international community would give those states as much support as it can to deal with the crisis. When we talk about stepping up to the plate, it is remarkable what those three states have done. However, other states in the region have not stepped up to the plate, including the wealthy gulf states. We need to confront them morally about their failure in this regard and challenge them. It cannot just be commerce and business as usual with these states. We need to say we are part of a global community and everybody has to step up and do what is right as part of their international obligations.

Yesterday, INIS officials and the Refugee Applications Commissioner appeared before the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, to which the Minister made reference. They are good people doing their best but it is clear that there is not a definitive plan. They are working their way through what needs to happen, which presents an opportunity. Obviously, we would like full costings and a detailed plan but that will take time over the next number of months. Sinn Féin will submit its own suggestions, which I will address shortly.

President Juncker in his state of the Union address referred to a contribution of €6,000 per refugee to states and €500 per refugee for travel and so on. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform rightly said the Government would say to the Union that whatever expenditure is undertaken in this crisis will not be factored into normal budgetary considerations, which would mean it would not have an impact on other decisions the Government makes. I note both these important points. A considerable number of our citizens are wondering about our own housing and unemployment crises and our economic recovery and asking whether they should be addressed first. I strongly believe that we can address both domestic and international obligations but we need to lay out clearly how and why the State can do both. That is absent from the debate currently. I ask the Minister and her senior officials to ensure there is a clearly communicated plan and a clearly communicated message that the Government will deal with these domestic issues but can meet our international obligations and to reassure people before this is turned into a silent resentment or, possibly even worse, racism.

It is very important that we co-operate with the non-governmental organisations. There are superb people in those organisations who have tremendous expertise in terms of integration and location at various places throughout the State. We need to involve communities in advance. We need to tell them that there will be X number of refugees and their families moving to their areas and involve them in the process. There are good models. For example, Southill in Limerick was brought to my attention yesterday. I understand there was a relocation of Congolese or African citizens there that worked really well. That is a good model, which I would ask the Minister to examine. That can be done but we need to plan it out and involve non-governmental organisations and thereby have an inclusive process.

This State has not opted in to two directives that would have allowed those seeking asylum to work after nine months. That is a reasonable expectation. I think we would all accept that our system has been way too cumbersome and that it has taken too much time to make decisions. I welcome the fact that legislation relating to this matter will be brought forward in the near future, and the sooner the better. We have had people stuck in these direct provision centres for far too long, in some cases for more than ten years. We need to make decisions about people who have been there for that length of time. We should allow them to stay, that is my firm view. As the Minister will be aware, the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions did a good deal of work on this - its members visited the centres and it published a report. We are not happy at all with the direct provision system. It fails our people and does not reflect their values. It needs to go. I do not want the new numbers of refugees who will come here to face similar experiences. We have a bad track record on this, which is out of kilter with the history of the State.

As I have said in this Chamber on numerous occasions, ours is the only country in the world that has a smaller population than was the case in the early 1800s. That reflects our history of mass emigration, which has continued right up to recent years. I am a Donegal man. Our history in Donegal has been one of emigration. My father and grandfather emigrated. I emigrated for a short period and was lucky to be able to come home. That has been the history of people from Donegal and the west. It is the history of our country. With that history in mind, surely we can do better on the issue of taking a reasonable and fair allocation of refugees and welcoming them to our country. However, we must do it in a way that deals with the fears - sometimes these are legitimate - of citizens. We can do all of that.

I want to outline some of my party's ten-point plan on this issue. Ireland should commit to taking one refugee per every 1,000 of our population. A proposal in this regard was made by the non-governmental organisations and that is one of the figures mentioned in it. In fairness, the 4,000 figure over the two years is in that ballpark. That would see us take in 4,500 to 5,000 people this year. The direction the Government has taken is a good step. We probably can do more but it is certainly very encouraging and it is a good signal. We need to continue this in the next number of years because this crisis is not going to go to away any time soon.

We need to develop a national action plan. That plan should be both short-term and long-term focused. The Government should immediately set up a working group, made up of immigration experts. Some of what I am calling for may already be happening. I will set out the points, as we put them forward before these measures were taken. As stated, the Government should establish a working group, made up of immigration experts and civil society groups, to speedily identify the infrastructural requirements and other needs and the logistics necessary to make our response to the crisis as successful as possible. I understand from yesterday's meeting that a fair amount of that is happening. The Government should also engage with the Northern Executive - this is very important - and the British Government to work on a common approach across the island. We call for the immediate implementation and enhancing the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme from Britain into the Six Counties.

We fully support the use of the Irish Naval Service in search-and-rescue missions in the Mediterranean and the Government's call to ensure that these missions continue. We do not want Ireland to be involved in a EUNAVFOR Med mission or a military-style mission. However, all of our people are immensely proud of the work of our Naval Service and we should continue that work. I have already said that we need to end direction provision system.

We call for an emergency summit of member states to be convened immediately. Emergency meetings are ongoing and I ask the Minister to be at the forefront of that process. We call for others to play their part on setting up safe and legal access to Europe. This could be done through a UN Security Council resolution, as well as all European member states working together in a spirit of the Article 80 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, TFEU, to make this happen. This could also include the provision of the issuing of humanitarian visas for those travelling from conflict zones.

We must suspend the Dublin regulations to ensure effective access to asylum. The regulations usually mean that the responsible member state will be the state through which the asylum seeker first entered the EU. The Dublin regulations establish a hierarchy of criteria for identifying the member state responsible for the examination of an asylum claim in Europe. This is not practical under the current circumstances.

We call on the European Commission and member states to activate the temporary protection directive. Temporary protection is an exceptional measure to provide displaced persons from non-EU countries and unable to return to their country of origin with immediate and temporary protection. It applies in particular when there is a risk that the standard asylum system is struggling to cope with demand stemming from a mass influx that risks having a negative impact on the processing of claims. This directive and its concrete proposals must be immediately activated in light of the current situation. We call on the Commission and member states to stop co-operation with third countries which aim to prevent asylum seekers from reaching a safe place in Europe and we also call for an end of negotiations on any such agreements with third countries, such as Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Egypt, that do not guarantee the protection of refugees and respect for fundamental rights.

Ireland should opt back in to the common European asylum system, CEAS. As I said, we should opt in to the directives. If we set a challenge that somebody has the right to work after nine months, it will mean that we will get our act together in terms of applications process. We cannot leave people languishing, for more than ten years in some cases, without the ability to work, living on €19 a week. I have visited these direct provision centres in my role as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions. They fail the standard of decency that we set as a State. We cannot allow this to continue and we need to address it. We need to opt in to directives, which will ensure that our State meets the standards that are expected of the European Union.

We need to address the root cause of the crisis. We need to strengthen long-term efforts to resolve the root causes of the refugee crisis by advancing political solutions to conflict and inclusive socioeconomic development across Africa and Middle East. Ireland has a proud track record in overseas development aid. We had the highest per-capitacontribution to overseas development in the world a few years ago. It is a proud track record. We can do more. We can position ourselves in terms of conflict resolution because of the recent history in this State; we can be human rights defenders and we can be honest brokers. We have a fantastic diplomatic service. I have had the pleasure of seeing those in that service many times over the years. We can play a key role here but I am happy with the response to date. I have been disappointed historically but recently we have started to show a new direction and I hope we continue on that path.

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