Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the White Paper on direct provision. Our State has a nasty history of institutionalisation of vulnerable people and successive governments have turned a blind eye to the suffering and trauma that direct provision has caused countless people.

Sinn Féin is committed to an end to this for-profit system and this White Paper will bring some light at the end of a very dark and long tunnel which has brought distress to many and disgrace on us as a society. Children have spent years in these, for want of a better word, detention centres. I know all parents, and mothers feel this deeply, have been deprived of the basic right to provide a home-made meal for their children. To be deprived of something as basic as that for sometimes years really brings shame on us.

As a nation who for centuries went anywhere we could speak the language and anywhere that would have us, we have a particular responsibility to welcome and give home to strangers forced from their own countries, like we were, by oppression, occupation, starvation and now, increasingly, climate change. If we could see in the desperate faces of those who come to us the faces of our own people, our diaspora, who still have links to our country but were forced to leave, some people would have a kinder and better view of the people who come to our shores. I am talking about people being led astray by far-right groups. If they could look into the eyes of the people who come to us seeking refuge and see in them our own diaspora, they would treat those people differently.

I welcome the White Paper. I commend the Minister on taking this on when it has been put on the long finger by successive governments. The devil is in the detail, however, or, unfortunately, the lack of it. We need legislation and clarity around the setting up of an agency to deal with many of the provisions and, of course, the lack of any kind of housing response proportionate to the crisis we are in as a society. I hope this will be addressed.

Sinn Féin also believes people should have the right to work earlier than the six months proposed. We should remember our older generation were fed and reared on money sent home from England, Scotland and America by their fathers, and often by older brothers and sisters. The people who are coming to us should also have that right. I was looking at my father's old pictures and perhaps three or four of the children had shoes. Many of those families were kept alive and nourished by money that came home. People have a right to work.

Culturally, earlier generations knew what it was like to wait for the parcel and the letter with the dollars or pounds in it. Now it is our turn. The right of people to work in a timely manner and perhaps send money home to their extended families is not a radical proposal.

Many asylum seekers work in our health centres and in our healthcare system. If this wretched coronavirus has shown us anything, it is that, in this world, we are just one people and it is our responsibility to take care of everybody. Certainly, this is a good pathway out of our current damaging and shameful direct provision system. A pathway is not enough, however, if it can be blown away and destroyed by the whims of selfish future governments. It is a good start, however. I say "Well done" to the Minister. Let us make sure, however, the detail and legislation and housing vehicles are put in place and we will do our very best for the people depending on us for their future and, indeed, for their very lives.

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