Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

Five hundred asylum seekers were living on the streets a couple of weeks ago. The Taoiseach said today that was down to 250. Ours is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and it is totally unacceptable to have any asylum seeker living in the street, just as it is unacceptable to have any Irish citizen living in the street. I understand it was going to be a struggle to provide for everyone who arrived over the past two years, but there is a context to all this. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and the Green Party, over successive Governments, instituted a programme of austerity and cuts to public services, housing policies designed for the wealthy to make profits at the expense of ordinary people being able to find homes, and an asylum-seeking process intended to scare people away from the country through the cruelty inflicted on people through direct provision. The Government cannot now turn around and say it does not know why its response is not working properly. The difficulties we are facing are because of the rotten foundations on which they were built.

Asylum seekers are facing an increasingly violent far right. We have seen that with the attack on the camp in Sandwith Street, the assault of the 70-year-old man in Clare this week and the increasing number of threats made against people working with and supporting asylum seekers. I joined Dublin Communities Against Racism last January not just to resist and condemn the hate and lies of the far right but to put the blame for the crises we are facing, from housing to healthcare, firmly at the feet of the parties that have led our Governments for decades and the policies they have implemented. There is fear and anger arising from the desperate economic circumstances many face in this country. Our communities have faced decades of cuts, underfunding and neglect. People cannot find homes. They have been let down time and again by successive Governments. This fear and anger is now being weaponised by the far right and directed at asylum seekers, refugees and those working to welcome and support them.

Great work is going on in communities to push back against the far right's lies. I am a member of Drimnagh for All, which has done great work. Even so, people are understandably scared that these underfunded and neglected services will be further stretched. The way to avoid this was by properly informing communities about what was going on. If they were going to have new arrivals, what new services would be set up and what new resources or supports would be needed? That did not happen because, as far as I can see, the Government knew it did not have those supports in those communities. We lack teachers, so students are missing out on studying certain subjects, and we do not have enough resources for these schools and communities.

As I always say, we need to start building public housing on public land. The Minister stated earlier that the Government had identified 30 sites on which to build 1,500 modular homes for people on the housing lists. Sites for modular homes to house asylum seekers were identified in November, yet we still do not have them. I want to hear about what sites, what modular homes and when they are going to be there. The Government needs also to reassure communities that they will get more services, not fewer. We need to end this two-tiered asylum-seeking process, start finding accommodation for IPAS applicants and reinstate the eviction ban to ensure nobody, no matter where they come from, will have to live on the streets.

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