Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I want to begin with a very simple premise: that is, that migrants have contributed hugely to our country, as we did when we went overseas and contributed to others. I think it is important to start there.

Ireland would grind to a halt without the work of migrants who live here and have contributed both through their labour and their enhancement of our culture. They have powered our industries, which would completely collapse without their service. Some 40% of our doctors are migrants. Our healthcare system, public transport and retail sectors would cease to function without them. Hospital waiting rooms, which are already overcrowded, would overflow to an unimaginable degree. The trolley crisis would reach heights beyond our comprehension and lives would be lost if we did not have migrants who came here to contribute to our republic.

Some 95% of migrants in our country are working but they are valuable for much more than their contribution to the economy. They enrich our society, families and culture. They are friends, neighbours and loved ones. They are people no different from any of us here and they should not be evaluated or judged any differently from how we look at ourselves.

Migrants and people who have come here in search of sanctuary deserve better than this process, which has been rushed and seems to be devoid of any degree of humanity. This chaotic approach is causing real harm. Refugees fleeing war and famine have been left on the streets in tents. They have been moved from place to place every single stay, with no circumstance of destitution sufficient enough to abide the callousness of those who seek to create division from their presence here. This approach, or lack thereof, has created a void and it has been allowed to be filled by division and hate.

In this Chamber, we do not seem to be able to even agree on numbers or data, never mind a strategy. Minority communities are experiencing racist abuse and violence as a direct result of incompetence. We need a fair, humane and efficient asylum system, something we have seen no sign of yet, and there has been no indication of progress, certainly not in this debate so far.

We need to increase the resources and staff at the IPO and IPAS so that claims can be dealt with fairly, humanely and with some degree of flexibility and speed. The backlogs found in these organisations have crippled staff and hindered the efficiency of our entire migration system. The only scrutiny of the migration pact in the Oireachtas extends to two three-hour sessions in the justice committee, which is far from enough considering the gravity of its effects. There has been almost no debate and no scrutiny of the measures. Any Dáil debate there has been on the issue in recent weeks has been during Private Members' time in the Dáil, and it has given time to those who wish to espouse their hate and division. The Government is ramming it through with just one vote, even though there are seven separate regulations and packages of measures, and even though when this was passing through the European Parliament, they were able to vote on each individual issue.

There has been a deplorable communication strategy that is now being masked by performative cruelty on the part of the Government. The Tánaiste has said on numerous occasions that Government communications and engagement on migration must improve on all fronts and that we need a Covid-style response. Would that not be lovely? We have heard the same thing from the Government repeatedly for more than two years. Can we ever expect this to change or is that not within the capability of the Government? To be fair to the Minister in charge and the Tánaiste, it is very difficult to communicate a strategy that simply does not exist. As it stands, the strategy only seems to extend to the occasional desperate appeal to the private sector for some dilapidated buildings. Short-termism and desperation have underpinned this approach, allowing the far right to challenge the narrative with their hateful agenda.

We will be voting against this pact but we will be doing so for very different reasons from those that have been communicated by others in the Chamber. There has been very little discussion on the various human rights concerns that many people have expressed. The Social Democrats have concerns about aspects of this pact, with the border procedure, the potential for detention camps, the stripping away of the right to legal advice and the fiction of non-entry to Europe to the fore. We also have questions about the uniqueness of Ireland's situation with regard to the North and this has in no way been alleviated. More than 160 NGOs, including Oxfam, Amnesty and Médecins Sans Frontières, are opposed to this pact and experts in the field feel it violates human rights law. There have been attempts by some in this Chamber and elsewhere to undermine the work of these organisations but they do valuable work every single day and their voice should be respected. They agree that a fundamental right to asylum and international protection will be severely diminished by this pact.

To have more people in detention centres on EU borders, including families with children and people in vulnerable situations, does not paint a picture of a fairer Europe. We should not be treating those more vulnerable than us in a way that endangers them further. A system with reduced safeguards for people seeking asylum, substandard border asylum procedures and more people being refused a fair and full assessment of their asylum claims is not a system that we should be adopting. Given the horrific history of institutional incarceration in this country, we should be very careful before we impose any other institutions of incarceration on people.

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