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

Some 3,000 people with status to remain here are being told to leave their IPAS accommodation as of tomorrow. My very simple question to the Tánaiste is this. Where is the Government asking these people and their families to go? I think I know the answer. In the absence of a plan, there will be a merry-go-round of misery.

This question - where are people simply to go? - was put to the Minister for Finance and Fianna Fáil's deputy leader on "Morning Ireland" this morning. His answer was that they should go to their local authority. He very clearly has not been down in Parkgate Street lately because it is out the door with families in very similar situations. The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, called this cruel measure a pathway to integration.

If this actually happens, what the Government is risking here is destroying the cohesion built up by civic society which has had to step up in the absence of a Government plan over the last 18 months, helping families such as those in East Wall, for example, to get involved in sports clubs and to be in the schools. What the Government is proposing now is to move one cohort of very vulnerable people away from the services they built around themselves and to bring another cohort in and start the misery again. Please do not do this. Stop that cruelty.

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