Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Thanks very much, Deputy. When it comes to concerns about migration - I talk to a lot of people about this all the time – I do not think the vast majority of people gave huge concerns about people coming to Ireland from the UK or the European Union, or about people coming here with work visas or student visas from outside the European Union. There is a real concern around irregular migration – people arriving here seeking international protection. Precisely because it is so hard to manage, we do not know how many will arrive on any given day, where they will be from or what documents they will have. Contrary to what you will hear and to what is being spread about the place, the number of people seeking international protection in Ireland this year will be lower than last year. It will be roughly 13,000 this year, down from 15,000 the year before. That is in part because of actions we have taken as the EU to secure the external borders of the European Union and also in this State in terms of managing our own borders better.

However, it is naive to think any Government can stop the flow entirely when there are hundreds of millions of people on the move in the world. Within weeks of a Government being elected in Italy very much the basis of on an anti-migration platform, more people landed on the island of Lampedusa than live there. We saw the attempts of former President Trump in the US. Huge numbers of people arrived throughout his presidency. We also know what is happening in the UK. We have to be honest with people about this. The world is a dangerous place. Europe is paradise, and Ireland is one of the best parts of paradise for most people in the world. Hundreds of millions of people are on the move. Thousands will come here and we just have to manage that as well as we can.

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