Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is nearly two years since the Government published its White Paper on ending direct provision. This followed on from the Catherine Day report into the system and recommendations from the Joint Committee on Justice. Both offered some hope of an end to the inhumane system of direct provision, which is totally inefficient and expensive and where one provider earned €400 million. Direct provision was originally established as a stop-gap measure. The Day report was clear in most of its recommendations and committed the Government to addressing several areas where refugees required support.

In welfare, work and education, it recommended access to driver licences, more immediate access to the labour market and better welfare supports. This was supposed to be the end of the impoverishment of residents, who had to subsist at the time on around €35 weekly. The demand for this work came from refugees themselves as part of a campaign by the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, MASI, and reflected the desire to be given a chance at earning a living. Barriers to entry still exist, however, as there is still a waiting period of six months for international protection applicants. The White Paper also committed to creating a means-tested international protection payment. Again, this was supported by MASI, demonstrating the desire from refugees to earn their own way, but we have yet to see it implemented. Catherine Day correctly took the view that she needed to look not just at accommodation but also at the processing of asylum claims. At the time, there were some waits of up to seven years. Delays can also cause great stress for applicants, leaving them in limbo. Legal avenues for appeal and due process must of course be respected, but the length of delay was too much.

In response to this, both the Catherine Day report and the White Paper recommended that measures be taken, through the use of technology, for example, to speed up applications. Amazingly, we are still seeing the use of paper forms, some of which are now being completed without the benefit of legal advice. The Day report did recommend the granting of a leave to remain for those spending two years or more in the system, a matter on which the White Paper was silent on. The undocumented scheme sought to address this and did some good work but there will be further backlogs soon. We need a system that is efficient and fair, and co-operation across the Departments of Justice and Foreign Affairs especially is required. The overwhelming majority of asylum seekers arriving are fleeing persecution but all deserve to have their applications dealt with swiftly to give them certainty.

The White Paper identified other flaws that should have been tackled as such with proper legislation and the establishment of an agency to co-ordinate many of its aspects, but it goes without saying that the most obvious miss was in relation to housing. The White Paper foresaw two phases in terms of accommodation: the first being State-owned reception centres, where applicants could spend their first six months; and the second involving more medium- to long-term accommodation. We have seen little or no progress on the reception centres which were supposed to be specially built to suit refugees' needs and located in appropriate places close to services. The second phase was left somewhat open-ended with approved housing body, AHB, accommodation, rent-a-room schemes, turnkey acquisitions and the refurbishment of commercial properties all in the mix. The Government made a start on turnkey acquisitions but the Russian aggression in Ukraine and the subsequent refugee crisis did, I accept, cause challenges. No attempt was made, however, in relation to the AHB housing, and with no increase in the capital spend next year, it is hard to see any progress forthcoming in expanding the housing stock.

In other areas, with Ukrainians, asylum seekers and those living here already, the Government must show action on Sláintecare, especially GP care and primary care centres. These are inadequate. For example, the out-of-hours services in Listowel for SouthDoc are totally inadequate. All-party consensus was supposed to be present within health, yet we see that Government implementation is way behind. It was difficult to find a GP for many over the past number of years, and putting vulnerable people who need treatment into towns and villages already struggling causes problems. This, though, is no fault of families who are in hotel rooms, and the protests outside their rooms are wrong. IPAS can conjure up accommodation from wherever, but without a whole-of-government response, this will only cause trouble. While I welcome the appointment of the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O’Brien, he is, in effect, triple jobbing and this is only going to be one of the areas for which he will have responsibility. This is not good enough.

I have described the Government’s plans to end direct provision as effectively being shelved, so I was amazed to find in a recent response to a parliamentary question that spending in the Department responsible is going down, yet commitments remain on the table. Some honesty there is required, and there is a need to work with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on targets for the overall housing stock and specialised accommodation. These are some of the measures we need. Our international obligations must be delivered. It is important that we are having this debate, because it is a long-standing problem. Everyone needs services and it is this need that they share with some of the people who have found themselves in refugee centres.

A mentality of division has been fostered by this Government - and previous governments - and the parties that constitute it for a long time. We see this in the context of the pandemic bonus payment. We see it in the pitting of the private sector against the public sector, rural against urban and, even yesterday, existing renters against new renters on rent pressure zones. Unfortunately, the division is rearing its ugly head across the State. Concerns about housing, crime and health are foremost in people's minds. Due to vacant properties being in areas where many vulnerable working-class people live, and in tourist and seasonal towns, there is interaction with migrants and refugees. The response has been worrying.

The vast majority of people in Ireland are decent, welcoming and fair, and we have seen this in the response to the international protection applicants and Ukrainians. The traction being gained by a small minority is due to an inherent exploitation of fears. I wish briefly to quote Roy Jenkins, a Welshman, a British minister and a European Commissioner in the 1970s. He recognised that people in Britain had been constantly stimulated and jolted out of a natural island lethargy by a whole series of immigrations, similar to here. He said that in the 1970s, when Irish people were being picked upon, "a few people, whether out of political opportunism or personal inadequacy, [had] deliberately whipped up prejudice, playing on fear and ignorance, and blaming the immigrants for the problems which were none of their making but which stemmed from previous parsimony in housing, schools and welfare services".

We need a united front against this rising tide of hate and we must combat falsehoods. Some 8 million Ukrainians have been displaced and less than 1% of those are in Ireland. There are no international protection applicants skipping social housing lists. The median processing time is about ten months. In 2021, only 0.4% of total EU immigrants came to Ireland and in November 2022 less than 1% of asylum applicants were in Ireland. Many of them have contributed to retail and to the Covid response.

Before I finish, I want to remember two people, both of whom happen to be from the south-east corner of my county. Joe Madden was buried on Monday morning. He was born in a mother and baby home. He was boarded out to Kilgarvan in County Kerry and at 16 he had to leave and ended up in Paddington Station alone with a suitcase, a migrant in a new life. I also want to remember Mike Quill, the famous Kilgarvan and Kerry man who was the leader of the transit workers in New York and who organised the poor and exploited people and worked for the civil rights for minorities. He said he worked for people who were "so low down on the economic and social ladder that [they] had nowhere to go but up." We should respect Mike Quill and Joe Madden, the latter of whom died and was buried on Monday morning. We should respect those migrants. It is the least we can do.

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