Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have nothing at all against refugees or asylum seekers. How could I have anything against people I do not even know? We all feel for people who are fleeing war and conflict in other countries. However, it is clear this Government has an open-door policy, but it has not accommodation sorted out and services like doctors, teachers, schools and all those things in place. The Government landed over 4,000 extra people into Killarney without having one extra doctor. That is not fair on the people who have lived all their lives in Killarney and the surrounding areas, but it is also not fair on the refugees and asylum seekers. I need not pass Killarney to realise that the Government is not up to it.

We saw what happened in the hotel on Park Road. Refugee women and children were going to school, and they had integrated. Then, the Government decided they must be taken out of that facility, and it put in 400 asylums seekers from 14 different countries. On New Years' night, they stabbed each other and they fought and there were court cases. People were terrified. There were ambulances and Garda cars around the place like they had never seen before. That is not acceptable. Until such time as the Government has accommodation in place and proper services, please, it has to call a halt. It has to look after the number of people who are here and stop at that. Until the Government has things sorted out, we cannot have people on the streets. It is making a show of us.

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