Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)

The Government's immigration policy has been an absolute shambles. The Government has disrespected the people of this country. People in the community where I am from ask me every day what is happening to a particular building. I come in here and ask the Minister of State and his party leader but I get no response. I engage with property owners who tell me they are developing a hotel only to find out later, through a leaked document, that it is going to be an IPAS centre. That is what the Government has done. It has treated the people of Ireland like mushrooms. It is keeping them in the dark and feeding them rubbish. After a year or two years of raising this, what has the Government done? Nothing. Then it signs the EU migration pact. The Government cannot manage the system so it hands it over to our European overlords, to let them decide. I have a message for the Minister of State. If he cannot manage his Department, he should hand over the reins to someone who can. He should not hand them over to the European Union. We go to the people seeking a mandate to govern this country and to make decisions for the welfare of our people but the Government turns around and cedes power to the European Union. That is what it has done and it is so frustrating. We have marked the 100th anniversary of this Republic. On that anniversary, the Fine Gael MEP, Seán Kelly, said that 70% to 80% of our laws are made in Brussels. On so many issues that I raise at the committee on agriculture, I am told they are related to a European directive. That is what we are told but it has been signed over by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. That is not what they tell us. What happens when we do not comply with an EU directive? We get a fine. Who pays the fine? It is not paid by the Minister who signed over. No, it is paid by the Irish people.

The reality in relation to the EU migration pact is that we currently do not have the ability to process asylum applications and are looking at fines down the line. Many of the issues raised in relation to the EU migration pact were things we could have implemented ourselves. That is the truth and the Minister of State cannot argue with that point. What was sold to the Irish people was that this pact would streamline the immigration system and speed up processing times, as if to say that we could not do that already. The Minister of State knows that we could but we did not have the will. It is deeply shocking that the Government would seek a mandate from the Irish people and then hand over power to Europe. Then, when it hits the fan and we have a fine, the Government says that it is nothing to do with it, that the EU says so. It is despicable.

In the short time remaining, I want to raise the issue of IPAS centres going into communities which are given no say. Section 5 applications are being submitted right across the country. Last week, in my constituency two section 5 applications were submitted, one for Kevin Barry Street in Ballina and the other for Abbey Street in Ballinrobe. I did some research into the companies involved.

You would want to be an investigator to understand what is happening.

See this speech in context