Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is three years since the previous Government set up a working group to report on the asylum process and how we could fix and change it. It is almost two and a half years since Mr. Justice Bryan McMahon came back with a series of recommendations, including one to the effect that we should allow asylum seekers who have been in the process without a decision for nine months to work. It is four months since the Supreme Court gave the Government a six-month window to rectify that matter.

However, there is nothing in the legislative programme. How and when does the Taoiseach intend to provide justice for asylum seekers whom the Supreme Court recognised are being treated unconstitutionally? Our current system is killing them with boredom and mental health problems. How does the Taoiseach intend to rectify that in the next two months? What must we do to legislate for it and why is it not in the programme before us?

See this speech in context