Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)

I listened to the Minister's opening comments. I lost track of the number of times he said the phrase "rules-based system". In talking about international protection, some of the words I did not hear in his comments, or when the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, provided more focus in his comments, were "compassion", "trauma-informed", "gender-specific accommodation" or any of the actual compassionate, humanitarian, dignified elements of an international protection system towards which we should be striving. None of those words appeared. All we have heard about from this Government since it came into power are the restrictive measures it has brought into the international protection system. That seems to be its entire and sole focus in terms of international protection. As we have heard from a range of speakers today, all that does is feed into the far-right rhetoric that is growing in society, which brings anti-migrant sentiments right into our mainstream population. That is what it does.

The other thing the Minister failed to mention about this rules-based system he talked about is that those rules are rules the Government has set. They do not even meet the obligations we have under international law, never mind domestic law. When will we get to a point where we are actually speaking in reality about the experience of people who come to this country, in their most vulnerable situation, seeking our humanity and help? What we are seeing is a direction of travel, and the EU migration and asylum pact will only bring us there more quickly, that denies the right to asylum and brings people into detention and de facto detention. All along, all we are seeing with all of this is bringing us into a situation where the Government is emboldening and fomenting this incredible anti-immigrant sentiment in our society. Tá dualgas orainn mar ionadaithe poiblí seasamh in aghaidh an chiníochais agus in aghaidh scéalta chailleach an uafáis.

See this speech in context