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

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing this motion to the House. It is a worthy motion and worthy of good debate.

We are watching the Government stand over a rapidly worsening crisis of accommodation for international protection applicants and Irish people. Time and again, the Government has missed the targets it has set for itself. It has become a national disgrace. We are failing to meet the international commitments we have to asylum seekers or the basic moral obligation we have to care for people living in this country. Last week, we witnessed the Government’s decision to tear down a camp of asylum seekers and ship them out to an isolated area without proper provisions put in place at that time.

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