Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I genuinely take the good faith in which people are raising it. They are quite right to raise it. Many people have raised it and contacted us all about it. The Minister for justice has a specific and important job to do and that is to apply the laws of our land on visas, child protection and immigration. If he did not do that, I am sure he would be criticised in the other direction. We are granting and have granted visit visas for quite a number of people from Palestine. We are always looking for ways, as a people, to support and show solidarity. We also have to operate and respect the integrity of our system. I am quite confident the rules being applied here by Ireland are exactly the sort of rules we would expect any other country to be applying as well. There is an appeals process in place. I do not want to cut across the independence of that. The Minister has outlined clearly the reasons why his Department was not in a position currently to grant the visas. I am ad idem with him on that.

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