Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is a welcome but delayed debate. The justice committee completed its report on the migration pact on 2 May but the Government postponed the debate until after the election. A response to a parliamentary question submitted in April confirmed the Government was in preparation for the implementation of the pact and it said that:

While Ireland has not yet opted-into most of the Pact measures ... other Member States will be bound by them two years after they are adopted [and] Member States are beginning to prepare their transposing legislation ... for the Pact to go live in 2026.

Meanwhile, others have been using migration to undermine the case for a new Government, for a fresh approach, and change that is needed in housing, health, employment and education. In the local election debate, I saw some people trying to drag the debate and other politicians into the gutter, telling untruths about asylum seekers, about politicians, about the Garda, and questioning the right of Irish citizens to even run in the election. Sinn Féin supports a regulated system of immigration and asylum that allows for asylum seekers to be processed expeditiously and for those with qualifications in areas where there are shortages, such as in our nursing homes, to be welcomed here. The asylum system has been broken for some time. The Government has failed to accommodate people, failed to give them proper decisions expeditiously, and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in charge of this entire mess for decades now. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael seem to oppose their own policy on asylum and migration or certainly have not budgeted for it when they trumpet the announcement. Green Party Ministers are being left isolated and left to deal with the mess within accommodation and we are left with a not-for-profit approach followed steadfastly by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael since the former introduced it nearly 20 years ago as a supposed stopgap but it has cost the State more and more and has created divisions within communities.

The removal of asylum seeker tents and the lack of consultation with communities arose from this approach and while the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the increase of international protection applicants are challenges, the Government has shown no real inclination to fix the issues up to now.

One of the simple reasons this is the case is reliance on private operators and ignoring State-led solutions. When left to the market, accommodation will inevitably only be provided where it is profitable to do so. This means interim accommodation in villages, towns and areas outside towns where property prices are low and businesses are struggling. People living there are inevitably struggling themselves meaning resentment can be stoked by the far right, which is increasingly organised and dangerous. I saw some videos that were treated as amusing in the local elections at the beginning but, in their attacks, were certainly not funny. Previous analyses have showcased that some areas have had to carry a larger share of the burden. It is within this context that we must consider the pact and the measures therein.

We need to retain our common sense remembering our history of emigration and reaching out in support of people in countries that have struggles, and we need flexibility. There are major human rights concerns in this criticism of the pact and the work of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice highlighted this. We listened to the concerns of organisations regarding the border procedure, the possibility of detentions and the welfare of vulnerable asylum seekers and we share concerns around detention, assessments, inspections and implementation. We heard reference to the nine migrants overboard and are also aware that in 2023, more than 2,500 human beings were reported dead or disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea. People escaping conflict and persecution or seeking economic security have faced illegal pushbacks and arbitrary detention and rescue at sea is not addressed here.

It is possible to adopt some of these regulations and not others. We should control our immigration rules at national level. Most of the measures in the pact are not in Ireland's interest. We must retain our discretion. We are unique within the EU in having only one land border - one we, of course, want to remove. We are also the only jurisdiction that speaks English, our island cannot be easily reached by small boats and we have a unique culture of emigration and solidarity.

There are also unknowable elements in the future. Signing up to the pact wholesale will limit Ireland’s ability to respond to these challenges. Preparing our own safe country list is also vital. Regarding the assessment of conditions in other countries, while we should look at what happens in the UK and the rest of Europe, we should take into account what Human Rights Watch and the UN are saying.

We need to understand and appreciate the reasons for this crisis and opt into regulations where European co-operation is crucial, including an approach that opts us into Eurodac for vetting and allowing safe return but not considering our own policies and other regulations is irresponsible. For those reasons, we cannot support the pact in full and will vote accordingly.

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