Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)

What we are being asked to vote on here is the Government asking us to trust it. That is what the entire motion comes down to. We are making statements today on the idea of trust. The Minister is asking us to sign off on a behind-closed-doors negotiation without access to the annexes, without public scrutiny and without a clear understanding of the implications. We are effectively being asked by the Government to trust it. I do not. From conversations I have had over the past week or week and a half, I can say that there are people the length and breadth of the country who do not trust the Government when it comes to immigration and international protection, and certainly not when it comes to how the Government is treating vulnerable people in that system.

Let me be absolutely clear. The proposal to enter negotiations with Kazakhstan is not about solving a problem but is about performance and optics. Since 2019, just 12 people from Kazakhstan have applied for international protection in Ireland and only one deportation order has issued in that time, yet we are being asked to green light a formal process to make deportations faster and easier. It is a process with real consequences for real people. It is a process we have not even been allowed to see in full at this point. We are told that this is about future-proofing. If this is the future we are preparing for, one where international protection is gutted, asylum seekers are scapegoated and vulnerable children in our school system are deported for public relations purposes, I do not want any part of it.

Last week, we all read reports of children being deported in the middle of the school year. They were pulled from the only homes they have known in hotels that are unsuited to that name. They had no proper warning or integration supports. From testimony I have heard from their school principals, friends and allies, the approach simply demonstrated no compassion. It was not just cruel but also seemed calculated. It was timed perfectly with ramped-up media spin about Ireland getting tough. This was not policy but theatre. It was a cost that was borne by children. What basis has a Minister to be sending out tweets announcing the deportation of 55 people? Who is the audience on Twitter for that? Let us just say that the dogs on the street could hear that particular whistle.

We have seen this kind of posturing previously. There have been press releases on deportation flights, as though they are something to celebrate. The Minister went on "Morning Ireland" to announce the measure as if he were a general coming back from war. There have been radio interviews with Ministers that link immigration with social problems in thinly veiled dog whistles. It is a strategy of division that shifts blame away from the Government's failures and onto people who came here to seek refuge, as is their legal right. This Government has broken the very system it now claims to be future-proofing. It commissioned the Catherine Day report and ignored its findings. The report was crystal clear that the reception system in Ireland is unfit for purpose. People were left in limbo for years and children grew up in institutional settings. Basic needs went unmet and supports were sporadic and inconsistent. The report painted a damning picture of a system built on delay, denial and dysfunction. It was updated to recognise the fact that increased pressure has been placed on the system by the conflicts and famines and other events that lead people to seek sanctuary. The updated report was also ignored. Who exactly was it that built that system? It was Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. There are those of us who for the past 20-odd years have been protesting the cruel conditions of direct provision. The same parties now claim they want to streamline international protection. They want us to believe they will honour human rights in negotiations with countries such as Kazakhstan, which, let us be clear, has a documented record of repression.

I say to the parties on the left and the Government parties that it should not be hard for us to say that children who are in the school system should not be deported three weeks before they are supposed to graduate primary school. It should not be hard for us to say that is wrong. Other countries have different systems through which this is done. Some systems are better and fairer. Last week's events were a poor example of who we are as a republic and how we treat children. Let us be clear that the rights of children are recognised in legal texts. Those standards were not met. When we talk about a rules-based system, we must ensure that we mirror those rules when we are enforcing the standards that we, as a State, are not meeting.

In Kazakhstan, there is no legal protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Domestic violence is not a stand-alone criminal offence. Independent journalism is muzzled. The Internet is censored. Critics are arrested under vague anti-extremism laws. Yet the Government wants us to believe that asylum seekers returning to Kazakhstan will be treated fairly, even when the very criteria used to assess asylum claims are being eroded across the EU.

The Minister says that if someone has a genuine case, he or she will be granted protection. However, we know better. We know that the definition of "genuine" is being narrowed all across Europe. Even people with legitimate fears are now being rejected because they do not fit neatly into bureaucratic boxes. More importantly, they do not fit neatly into the rhythm of the day and the audience to whom a centre-right Government is trying to appeal. It is when systems become hostile, political narratives turn sour and countries start competing over who can be toughest on migrants that the quiet tragedies happen. People get sent back and disappear. Over the past week and a half, I have heard many stories of people who are in the international protection accommodation services, IPAS, system being put into the prison system. That is outlandish. We are talking about the need to increase capacity in our prison system at the same time that IPAS residents are being put into prison without any information as to how long their stay will be.

That is genuinely terrifying. Surely, we must be better than that. I can give the Minister of State the names of individuals, if he likes. I talked to one individual today who was taken into prison accommodation, deported and, at this moment in time, does not know where his children, who are still here, or their mother are. What is happening is designed to be terrifying. That is the purpose of the tweets, the press releases and the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, going on the radio to say we have to get the message out there. Who is the message going to exactly?

Let us not pretend that this is harmless, that it is just a procedural step and that we are only opening talks. When you vote to begin a negotiation, you are endorsing its purpose. You are validating its logic and, in this case, the logic is flawed. The rationale is empty. The consequences are real. This Government has shown time and again that it is willing to trade in human dignity for political headlines. Just take a look at how we now recategorise our homeless figures, to see an example of that. That is what the deportation of children showed. That is what the broken reception system shows and what this vote shows.

We should not be outsourcing decisions about people’s safety to the European Commission without knowing what it plans to do in our name. We should not be engaging with repressive regimes in secret and we should not be treating people as if they are a problem to be managed rather than human beings deserving of rights, fairness and due process, above all else. This is not about migration management. It is not about future-proofing. It is very clearly about optics. It is about this endeavour to look tough and creating another stick to beat people with, even though only 12 people from Kazakhstan have come here since 2019. The purpose of this motion is to once again say, "Look at us. We are tough". What is actually tough is going into communities, having difficult conversations, hearing the fears and being able to explain that Ireland is not full. There are genuine communities that are running on empty. They have been asked to step up in the absence of the Government, but that is not the tough talk we are having. The tough talk is about the optics.

The Social Democrats will not support the motion because we have seen what this Government does when no one is looking. I have watched it spin cruelty into policy and I refuse to play a part in something that I know will be used, ultimately, to hurt those who have the least. I hope this House and parties across the left will have the courage to say the same.

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