Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is a better way of operating this. First, I want to acknowledge all the groups, representatives and other people in the Gallery who have travelled here to listen to this debate. I am sure they have taken it in with interest. It is part of an ongoing dialogue.

I thank the committee for this strong report which contains reasonable recommendations that should be taken on board. I have stated previously that I do not believe the State's response to the refugee crisis has been adequate. While I am of the view that the Government could and should have committed to taking on a more substantial number of refugees, it is also the case that even with the numbers that have been committed to, the numbers that have arrived are quite paltry.

Specifically on the issue of the unaccompanied minors, on 11 November last a motion was passed by this House that was the result of a specific campaign entitled Not on My Watch, which shone a light on the issue and brought it before these Houses. It successfully highlighted the plight of unaccompanied minors in Calais particularly but also elsewhere. A motion was passed to relocate 200 of those unaccompanied minors. My understanding is that only 30% of that relatively small target has been reached.

I appreciate the briefing that was offered by the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs some months ago that highlighted some of the difficulties. I recognise that it may be true that there are people who have a desire to go to Britain or Germany ahead of Ireland. That may be a real issue but, nonetheless, 30% of 200 is quite a modest number and I believe more could be done to offer people who are unaccompanied and in a very difficult situation a home in Ireland. I believe many of them would be glad to take that up.

An issue that was highlighted in the report was family reunification. I express my support for recommendation No. 2. My understanding is that there was provision for a stronger right to family reunification under the Refugee Act 1996 but that the international protection legislation of 2015 has somewhat reversed that and made it a more stringent, difficult test for people to be able to reunify with their families.

In my view, naturalised citizens who have immediate family currently living in danger and conflict zones and have family members who have been displaced should be allowed to be reunited with their loved ones. Quite often these people have left absolutely horrific situations, and there is a need to take account of the context in this regard. The following point, quoted in the report, is made by Nasc:

The ... Government's response to date, to take 4,000 refugees and asylum seekers over two years, while commendable, is simply not enough to account for the millions who are displaced worldwide, or the thousands of children that now live at risk throughout Europe. And it does not even begin to account for those who have been forced to remain in conflict zones [such as Aleppo, Mosul], Yemen, South Sudan, Eritrea.

I share that view and support the point made by Deputy Wallace that this issue is not specific to these conflicts. The issue of migrancy and refugees and how the State deals with it will be an ongoing issue politically, socially and morally for us in this State.

There is also reference in the report to the manner in which the system is administered and what might be described as a very limited used of discretion. A decision is outlined here whereby someone who was well established here and had a job received a letter from the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, INIS, issued in 2015 and his application for a visa for his parents was refused, despite his father being in the later stages of Alzheimer's. The INIS letter questioned the degree of destruction in Syria, stating: "It is noted that central Damascus has been relatively unscathed by the war in Syria." I recognise that officials in the Department and in INIS are constricted by policy and that there is only so much discretion they can show. Nonetheless, I find it very difficult to understand how this description was included in correspondence sent to someone whose father was ill and living in Damascus, a place ravaged by the civil war, and how reunification was not considered in this case. The report also states there is almost an adversarial approach to the people who make an application, which is reflected in the previous quote. Ms Fiona Finn, chief executive of Nasc, is quoted in the report as saying:

The Act will mean that many refugees are going to have to move from the refugee family reunification process to the immigration framework. Under that framework, of every ten applications [submitted], eight will be refused.

There is therefore a very clear difficulty in the scope and application of family reunification as it stands and it needs to be expanded quite considerably.

The issue of the undocumented is also touched upon in the report. The Minister of State said it is difficult to account for the number of undocumented persons. Nonetheless, on the basis of his own speech, I believe we can accommodate even the upper limit. Those numbers are not that high. These are people who are already, to many varying extents, integrated into society, many of them are working, and there is no reason to believe we cannot accommodate even the upper estimate that has been outlined already. As Deputy O'Callaghan said, it is worthwhile for the Department to explore the numbers involved and try to get under way the policy of regularising the undocumented. Migrant Rights Centre Ireland has outlined that this is not an unpopular decision. In 2015, 69% of the Irish public supported regularisation of undocumented migrants, which echoes the point, made by Deputy Rabbitte, that in many instances the public is ahead of public policy.

The last primary point I wish to make concerns direct provision. We had a debate on this in, I think, February, to which both the Minister of State and I contributed. Whatever the initial intentions of the policy, it has mushroomed into something quite beyond what was intended. It is a form of warehousing people. It is not a place in which it is fair to expect people to raise a family. It is certainly not fair to expect people to live there for several years with great uncertainty over their status, and it is debilitating in terms of people's sense of independence, sense of autonomy and self-esteem. I welcome the judgment that was made regarding the right to work, and I hope the Department will engage with it constructively. I believe many residents in direct provision would be very keen to engage with it. I recognise there is a housing crisis but I believe that people should have the right and entitlement to source their own accommodation if they can. Ultimately, the solution to direct provision, while people are waiting for their applications to be processed, is a life that is integrated in the community and people working, volunteering and studying in the community, providing as best as possible in their own lives for their own families.

On that specific point, I raised a further point during that debate which in some ways seems like a matter of detail, but for many residents I believe it is very important. I refer to the ability to cater for oneself. In the debate I raised with the Minister of State the fact that 128 people could be accommodated in self-catering facilities, according to the Reception and Integration Agency, RIA, statistics from January. I think he felt at the time that there had been an expansion and progress regarding the ability of people to cater for themselves. However, I checked the statistics for August just before I came down to the Chamber and there is the same number of places. Perhaps it is categorised differently - I do not know - but it certainly is not clear. What is very clear in the RIA statistics is that there are 128 self-catering accommodation places.

The recommendations that have been outlined are very reasonable, can make a substantial difference to the lives of thousands of families and individuals in Ireland who have come here seeking a better life and to that opportunity which the Government is so keen to speak about, and can offer them greater dignity.

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