Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

I welcome the transfer of some powers and funding away from the Department of children to the Department of Justice. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth had a lot on its plate with Tusla, childcare, mother and baby homes, Green Party leadership and failed Government referendums in the previous Government. There is no doubt about that. There were huge problems in that Department in terms of funding for early childhood education providers, the massive budget to Tusla yet no real direction on how it was spent, and the disgraceful way survivors of mother and baby homes were treated in that time and stopped from getting redress.

I wish to touch on a number of issues concerning the powers now vested in the Department. There is chaos in the country over the location of IPAS centres. The whole space is now rife with speculation and rumour. There is no doubt in my mind that certain investors are putting in applications for IPAS centres on properties they do not own.

There are also applications for planning exemptions in respect of those properties. It is rumoured that one of the reasons this is being done is because it has the effect of knocking down the price of a site they may wish to buy. The owner of a site may feel pressured into selling if he or she thinks the property may be damaged as a result of speculation about its use. There is chaos in this regard at present. The situation must be rectified.

A total of €1.2 billion will be spent on IPAS this year according to the reply to a parliamentary question I received from the Minister’s Department. That equates to €35,000 per person for the year, which is an incredibly high figure for what is permanent accommodation. The whole system, which makes a small number of people extremely wealthy in certain parts of the country, is damaging for local communities and the taxpayer. The Minister needs to get a grip on the cost of this process.

I have submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister on the number of people whose applications under the IPAS system are failing. The Minister indicated that up to 80% of applications so far this year have failed. This means one of two things. Either the application process was not being implemented strictly or properly in the past two to four years - in 2022 only a quarter of first applications failed - or a new cohort of people are applying to IPAS. The latter may be the case, particularly as the message sent out from this country in the past four or five years was incredible. That message was that Ireland was a soft touch when it came to IPAS applications. People could come here and apply and it would take years for their applications to be processed. If someone's application failed, they could appeal and it would take years for the appeal to be processed. If that failed, they could get a judicial review that could take years to be processed. While people in this situation could be the subject of deportation orders, it was believed that these would more than likely never be enforced. For the past three or four years, the vast majority of deportation orders have not been enforced. A big problem within the system is that there are no exit checks at our borders. There are no exits checks at airports or ports. Unless gardaí actually walk with an individual to the plane and sit in the plane with them, the Government does not know whether that person has left the country. That is a big problem.

In the context of the management of immigration, the Border is a big weakness with which the Minister has to get to grips. That may be possible now because of the so-called relationship reset with Britain. There are approximately 270 roads that traverse the Border. The idea that spot checks are going to solve this is madness. If a person is stopped in Dundalk and brought back to Newry, they can get the next bus or taxi or even walk back across the Border if they wants. The only way to manage this is with an Irish sea border. The principle of an Irish sea border has been accepted by the British when it comes to the movement of goods such as sausages and so forth. It is recognised that in order to maintain the integrity of European and British markets, an Irish sea border for certain goods is needed. We must ensure that an Irish sea border will cover the movement of people in the future. This would mean that people would apply for asylum at Belfast airport, Derry airport or wherever if they are coming to this island. It would suit the British because the flows of immigration go in both directions at different times.

If 80% of people are failing the asylum process, and the asylum process is costing €1.2 billion, it is fair to say that we are spending hundreds of millions of euro accommodating people who are not fleeing war and violence but who are, rather, moving to Ireland for economic reasons. While I believe we have a moral responsibility to try to protect people who are fleeing war and violence, it is clear from the Minister’s figures that many, if not the vast majority of, people involved in that process are not fleeing war and violence. We must send a strong message internationally that only people who are fleeing war and violence will be considered under the process. We need to say that this process is extremely strict and protective of the Irish system.

Work visas are another important issue. There are many good people from other countries doing fantastic work and making a great contribution to this country. Indeed, many essential workers are keeping our hospitals and nursing homes in operation. However, we are giving out many working visas and student visas that are not essential. Given the pressure on the system, it is time the Government began to row back on the number of visas being handed out. We added 100,000 people to the population of this State last year. That is the equivalent of the population of Galway city. Galway has a university, a hospital, dozens of schools and tens of thousands of houses. That level of infrastructure is not being built in this country annually. Dan O’Brien, who is a well-respected economist, has been writing about this. It is important that we start to match the number of people coming into the country with the resources we have available. If we do not do that, it will put pressure on society and make people feel that they are in competition for those scarce resources. That leads to the breakdown of the cohesion within society.

I wish the Minister luck in his new role. We need to ensure we get to grips with this situation for the benefit of those who really need help and for the citizens of this country.

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