Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The management of migration and application for refugee or temporary status in this country has been dysfunctional in many ways for years. Historically, with relatively low levels of migration, the number of applications for international protection status hovered between 1,500 and 2,500 per annum. Even then, our system of direct provision left people in limbo for years in shoddy accommodation with little opportunity to improve their lives or general circumstance. Despite our membership of the EU, we were, by dint of geographic location, largely excluded from the increasing migration into Europe. Our past economic performance also meant we were not viewed as a target location, but in recent years this has changed. We are now seen as a successful economy and therefore a place in which those seeking a better economic future will want to settle. In truth, our economy needs a certain amount of net inward migration to combat our falling birth rate, continue to provide the economic output and ensure all citizens can receive adequate social and economic protection as they age.

The problems of inward migration have become significantly acute in the past number of years. The increase in world population, which has largely gone unacknowledged, the Ukraine war and climate change have all played a major role. The State has also contributed to our more recent migration problems due to our failure to adequately and proactively plan to deal with our known responsibilities.

I acknowledge that the State has seen an influx of refugees from Ukraine and that no one could have envisaged the numbers of refugees who have needed and have been provided with protection in this State. The Irish people are to be commended on the many efforts made to provide accommodation in various forms to over 100,000 Ukrainians. However, the rise in the number of applications for temporary protection has been well flagged, considering the level of migration across the southern borders of Europe in recent years. European solidarity has dictated that Ireland too must play a role. Unfortunately, the Government and its associated offices did not take the appropriate action and steps to meet this challenge head on.

I am one of the TDs who put early questions to the Minister regarding border controls exercised by Ireland in respect of inward economic migration. I pointed out the lack of credible enforcement of border controls at Dublin Airport and our ports and that we were allowing people to present for temporary protection who had clearly hidden or destroyed their travel paperwork before meeting immigration officers. In an interview in recent days, Michael O'Leary of Ryanair clearly described the orchestrated destruction of travel paperwork by people looking to access the IPAS and IPAT systems from safe countries. He also described how the airlines have been offering technology to identify passengers by seat allocation and origin of departure but that there has been little to no engagement from Department officials. In addition, Ireland has operated a different safe country list from the rest of Europe. Until recently, the subsistence payments we were making were many times more than other EU states. All of this speaks to an obvious recipe that has been driving illegal migration to our shores, which in turn is damaging the legitimate cause of those who would and should qualify for legal and refugee protection under EU law.

We have had the arbitrary selection of hotels and guesthouses down the country to hide our lack of capacity in refugee planning systems. We have had the giving of tents along the canal bank walk. We have had the suggestion of revitalising an old prison plan to create a national refugee centre, along with more blue-sky thinking to magic up another five national centres around the country. Now, we have the European migration pact, a plan which Hungary and Poland attempted to block. This should sound some alarm bells. It is being presented as a catch-all solution to the migration crisis, a crisis which has been allowed to happen mainly because Europe's asylum-seeker laws have not been updated for over two decades. Now, we are being told by the European Commissioner who presented this plan, Ylva Johansson, that if we do not sign up to it, we could face legal action. What we are being asked to sign up to is a reactionary measure which is being cast like a net across the EU member states, regardless of each country's efficiency to implement it. In Ireland, we will be signing up to taking close to 30,000 migrants at a time when many of the migrants we have are sleeping in tents at the side of the road or in accommodation that HIQA is horrified by.

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