Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Bríd Smith. First, I welcome the campaigners in the Visitors Gallery who have put this issue on the agenda.

In an article in The Guardianon 2 August last, journalist Amelia Gentleman wrote:

What does a 10-year-old living alone in the migrant camp in Calais worry about most? Abdul is bothered by the rats that rustle around him while he sleeps and by the effort involved in getting enough food, in the wake of a decision last month by the French authorities to close down the cafe that fed children for free.

He is frightened of the local police who often spray teargas at him. Most of all he worries about his nine-year-old nephew, who is solely his responsibility, and who is struggling to cope with their five-month flight from violence in Afghanistan.

Mohammed, nine, worries about how he is going to find a pair of shoes. His cousin Ahmed, 12, worries about Mohammed and about a third cousin, nine, who went missing last week. He is also anxious about how to conceal his unhappiness from his parents, when he speaks to them on the phone in Afghanistan. They sold half their land to send him, the oldest child, away from Isis to safety in England.

A total of 1,300 unaccompanied minors have been sleeping in shipping containers. Dozens have been sleeping rough in the fields and roads around the camp, with no education and inadequate food. There are 70,000 unaccompanied children in Europe, according to the UNHCR. They are at extreme risk of exploitation and trafficking, and 10,000 of them have been reported missing.

The Irish State bears a degree of responsibility for this situation. Many of these children are fleeing imperialist wars. Successive Irish Governments, with members from this and the other side of the House, have facilitated these wars by providing Shannon Airport to the US military. Allowing 200 of these children to come to Ireland does not even begin to make up for the crimes that Irish Governments have committed against the people of some of these countries. The Chief Whip has appeared on news bulletins in recent days saying it is a no-brainer that this country should take 200 of the children. If it is a no-brainer, what does that say about the foot-dragging, kick-the-can-down-the-road comments of the three Ministers this evening? I am not surprised by the comments of the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Flanagan. They are Tories. However, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, was elected on a radical, supposedly progressive, ticket. Her comments this evening, in joining that approach, are deeply disappointing.

The Irish capitalist State owes a debt not just to the people and children of these countries but, on the refugee issue, to history itself. In the 1930s and for most of the 1940s, the doors of this State were effectively kept shut to those who most needed refuge, the fleeing and persecuted Jews. Ireland's ambassador to Berlin in the 1930s, Charles Bewley, said that Jewish refugees in Ireland would represent a contamination. In addition, the Department of Justice at the time said, "It has always been the policy of the Minister for Justice to restrict the admission of Jewish aliens, for the reason that any substantial increase in our Jewish population might give rise to an anti-Semitic problem". It was only in 1948 that a mere 150 Jewish children were taken in by the State. We say "No" to a repeat of this shameful episode. The State must be forced to take a far more urgent and different response today.

In addition, the State has not covered itself in glory when refugees and asylum seekers have relocated to this country. According to the UNHCR, Ireland hosted 1.4 asylum seekers per 1,000 of population between 2010 and 2014, compared to a European average of 3.5 per 1,000 of population. In other words, Europe has done two and half times more than Ireland. What do we do to asylum seekers when they arrive here? They have been forced into the direct provision system, prohibited from working and forced to live on a pittance. They have very restricted access to third level education. People who were told direct provision was a temporary solution for six months have been forced to live in these centres for five years - for almost ten years in some cases - with a severe toll on the mental health of some of them. In fact, 16 children under the age of five years have died in the State while living in direct provision centres. The chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council, Sue Conlan, is on record as saying:

It is known that poverty is a contributory factor in childhood deaths. It is state policy to keep children of asylum seekers in poverty and therefore we cannot rule out the possibility that the policy of direct provision is a factor in these deaths.

I do not have the figures for this week but 8,000 people - one third of whom were children - were forced into that system at this time last year.

Studies have found that immigrants around the world are more likely to start businesses than the native born, less likely to commit serious crime and are net contributors to the public purse. Despite this, racism is a problem in all capitalist societies, including in Ireland. It is not easy to grow a cactus in a rose garden and it is even more difficult to grow a rose in the desert. Particular plants flourish in particular soils. The ugly plant of racism flourishes best in a society of inequality and shortages, such as shortages of jobs, school places and housing, and in a crisis of homelessness. Welcoming asylum seekers to this country will be linked by the Anti-Austerity Alliance to a stepping up of our campaign against inequality and shortages, and the profit system which causes them. We support this motion and we will do whatever we can to put pressure on the Ministers and the Government to change their shameful position. We support the right to asylum and the closure of the direct provision centres. We seek education, jobs, housing and shelter for all. We also say, and it is an important point in this debate about racism and the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, "No" to capitalism and its wars, inequality and racism.

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