Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I am going to share time with Deputy Lawless. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this. It is important we have a rulebook and framework that is workable and enforceable. Those who come to a country, as the Ceann Comhairle said, through international law seeking protection and asylum need to have a framework that is fair but, equally, robust. Asylum seeking has been around for many decades. We first saw the mass movement of people during the Second World War and it has, sadly, continued in every decade since. Every country has a role to play. I would like to think that in Ireland we would be fair but, equally, robust, and signing up to a pact gives us a mechanism such that where international protection is being exploited, we can wave the rulebook, deport people and impose penalties. At the moment, there seem to be rules but no enforcement, that is, a rulebook that does not really exist in Europe. We need a uniform approach and that is what this pact offers.

Some Members in this Chamber have benefited from Ukrainian accommodation, as has been noted in the media quite a bit. They can throw it all back across the benches, but some people have gained €650,000 from the misery of that war and the people who needed accommodation, when others have merely walked down the street and put money in the tin or helped the poor misfortunates when we meet them outside.

I have just left the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party meeting, where I put down a motion, which I hope will take full effect in this House. I know of one example where an accommodation centre closed on a Thursday and women and children who had fled the war in Ukraine were brought out on buses. On the Friday, a brand new contract issued to this individual allowing it to become an accommodation centre for single males. It was a contract of longer duration and one that is more lucrative. The clause I suggested at the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party meeting would provide that if a State contract for an accommodation centre runs its course and if the provider does not extend the contract, there should be a one-year breakout clause such that it cannot return to being State accommodation. Wherever in the country that is happening, it is cashing in on misery. It is price-gouging to bring forward a group of people, terminate their accommodation and the following day, bring in a new cohort of people for more money and a longer duration. It is wrong. We need to bring in that clause urgently, and we passed the motion at the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party meeting.

This needs to be a fair system. If someone comes here fleeing the war in Ukraine, or famine, persecution or whatever, there needs to be a system that is fair whereby the State will provide for them, but it has to be equal provision. Whether it is third level grants or access to medical care, they need to get treatment equal to people who are already in this country. There cannot be unequal or preferential treatment. That is where resentment festers and grows. I ask that this clause we are seeking in my parliamentary party becomes Government policy in order that accommodation centres will not close one day of the week for women and children, allowing them to be turfed them out into the street, with a brand new State contract issued the following day for a five-year period for that same accommodation building to become a male-only facility for five years, bringing in far more money for the owner. It is a simple clause.

To go back to the point on fairness, when we sign up to this pact, we need to show people that we are robust in how we enforce the regulations, and that if people are going to come here and exploit that very delicate phenomenon that is seeking asylum or international protection, they will be deported and the benefits they have accrued will be immediately stripped from them.

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