Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing my time with Deputy Bríd Smith. I would like to praise the Minister of State but I am disappointed by his speech. I know that on a personal level he is very sympathetic to the plight. In a previous speech, he said he was very conscious of the misery and suffering experienced by refugees. He has made many sympathetic and positive statements. However, his defence of direct provision is wrong and he has failed to grasp that the people want to be involved in the solution, for example, in the humanitarian admission programme being put forward by Nasc. It was endorsed by the committee and will get Irish people to sponsor, finance and work closely to bring people into the country. Again, they are ahead of us. In my time in politics, which is quite some time when I include my local experience, the people have always been ahead of the politicians. Our problem is we are not listening. We are creating problems and division where there is none rather than building on the generosity of spirit of the Irish people. I fully endorse the report before us. I fully support all the recommendations and I thank the all-party committee for doing it.

I find myself in a strange position. Normally we are in here fighting to try to get results and here we have an all-party committee agreeing on everything. Where is the problem if the committee has looked at everything, listened to all the presentations and come forward with five very moderate proposals? Why is there a problem with that? I would like the Minister of State to depart from the script and look at what this all-party committee has done. It is very unusual that they are all in agreement on very modest proposals. It draws on the best of society, the voluntary groups and the groups that are in the Public Gallery who have worked hard to bring these matters to our attention.

I am quite familiar with direct provision from my work on the Committee of Public Accounts because we have had more than one report on it and it is not an efficient system. Even on a money level, it is not an efficient system. On a human level, it is inhuman. The Minister of State said people are looked after in that system and he has heard no one else come forward with a better proposal. He has admitted it was supposed to be a temporary provision, yet 17 years later we are still incarcerating people. I use the word "incarceration" because it certainly has echoes of the Magdalen laundries and the various industrial and reformatory schools. The same type of language is used, for example, that they should be happy. The Minister of State is shaking his head but that is the message, not only from the Minister of State but more generally.

With regard to direct provision, 37% of the people have been there for more than two years. I understand that one in seven of the residents have status but have no place to go so they cannot get out. Can the Minister of State imagine fleeing from war and all the other horrific conditions, being in direct provision for a very long time and then celebrating getting one's status yet having to remain in direct provision because there is no place to go? The cost of it is astronomical. The cost of direct provision in 2016 was more than €60 million. A number of small private companies make enormous profits from the misery of people who do not want to be there. They want to share in Irish society. Galway city distinguishes itself as having the highest percentage of non-Irish people. We are the multicultural capital of the country. Prior to 2016, it was almost 20% but since 2016, it has gone over 20%. We want to embrace multiculturalism and we do not want direct provision centres in our city. The one in Salthill is up for sale or has been sold and the residents there have no idea what will happen to them.

I do not have time to go through all the recommendations. I have no hesitation in supporting them.

The Minister of State disappointed me when he spoke about undocumented migrants, saying they brought this upon themselves in the sense that they broke the rules. If the Minister of State listens to some of the presentations given to the committee, he will see how they ended up as undocumented migrants. One is a mother who came here to do her masters degree. Unfortunately she failed her exams and lost her visa. She is working every God-given hour at the most basic work to bring up her children. She is an undocumented migrant. The Minister of State should read it, and if it does not move the heart of the Minister of State or the officials in the Department of Justice and Equality, I do not know what will.

Let us see if Department officials will be moved by factual figures on the impact on the economy. There are between 20,000 and 26,000 undocumented people in this country. We are only a tiny country and we have 20,000 to 26,000 undocumented, of whom between 2,000 and 5,000 are children. In a survey of 1,000, it showed 89% are in employment. They are keeping many people going in this country by being employed but they receive no benefit from it. More importantly, the State receives no benefit - 66% are in the same job for more than two years; 84% are in Ireland for over five years; and 49% for over eight years.

I could blind the Minister of State with all these statistics but the main point I make is it does not make sense not to regularise it. There are strong economic reasons for it. They will be paying tax, PRSI and all the other payments we have to make. At a rough calculation, there is €41 million in unpaid tax. What is the cost of deporting every single undocumented migrant? I am running out of time. The Minister of State should have a look at the recommendations and take a practical human approach to the best way out so that we are not dividing and conquering. If we have learned anything from institutional care, it is not to divide and conquer.

The context is that 64 million people have been displaced in recent years, which is the greatest displacement since the Second World War.

See this speech in context