Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I want to express my best wishes to the victims who are continuing to recover following the attacks of two weeks ago and condemn the wanton violence and thuggery of those recent events. There is no excuse for them and they have no place in our society.

I will support the Minister because, as I have said to a lot of media during the week, what I would much prefer us to focus on as a House is making the urgent adjustments the working people of Ireland in the centre want to see to our policies on justice and immigration. The Garda authorities and Government must be less dismissive of the fact that there is a morale and a retention issue. The Commissioner must seek to build the confidence that he has clearly lost. In that regard, I respectfully suggest that he cease his policy, that seems to be continuing, of the transposition of senior PSNI staff south of the Border, which, in my view, does not build confidence and morale among his own people.

I am in favour of immigration. I worked abroad. We must do everything we can in line with our capacity. Sadly, despite being advised by me and many others in the House, we persisted in developing a unique bespoke and outlier approach, in particular since the war in Ukraine, that middle Ireland is sick of. People fleeing the war in Ukraine will get €220 a week. If I am fleeing the war in Syria, I will get €38 a week. The Department of integration, in direct competition with Minister O'Brien has, in effect, contributed to and driven the price of rent up 12%, making multimillionaires of anyone with a bed to offer. That has exacerbated our housing problems. When there is an elephant in the room, we should mention it. I have been called a racist for mentioning it at every opportunity over the past year and a half. All of us need to welcome what we can, but we also need to wake up to the fact that there is no centralised European approach to this. We are doing much more than many other countries and the people in middle Ireland want to see us stand up.

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