Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I completely understand the State cannot accommodate people where they want to be accommodated. That is not my complaint; my complaint is he cannot work to earn the money to pay for accommodation in Dublin.

The Taoiseach says people can apply after five months and then it takes ten weeks but they have a right after six months so the Taoiseach is implicitly acknowledging the right to work is being denied. That right was gained in a Supreme Court case. It was fought tooth and nail by the Government at all stages but, ultimately, that case determined the right to work of asylum seekers after six months.

We are treating people like chattels and moving them around the State rather than making any meaningful attempt to integrate them. There are beneficiaries of temporary protection who have been moved out of Loop Head, an area of depopulation where they have been integrated and where people want them to stay. They are being moved because of compliance issues. I have been asking questions and finding it very difficult to get answers, as usual, as to what the compliance issues are and what is happening. Regardless, they are not the fault of people who are looking to integrate, who have children in school and who are being told that, because of compliance issues, their children cannot go to school next week or month but have to go to another part of the country and start the integration process all over again. If we are going to accept people, and we have an international duty to do so, we have to put systems in place to integrate them and not move them around the country like chattels.

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