Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)

I thought that was a very worthwhile debate. I stayed for the whole debate and I listened to the 21 TDs who contributed. I took notes of what everyone said. In the limited time, I will not be able to go through what each Deputy said, but I listened very carefully.

It is apparent that there are a couple of things that everyone in this House agrees on. It is worth emphasising that. There is a benefit in having this debate. If this Chamber does not debate contentious and divisive issues such as migration, then the word will go out that they will not even talk about it in the Dáil. I welcome the fact that we had a respectful debate here this afternoon. Everyone felt they were able to contribute and I listened carefully to the views that were expressed here.

One of the aspects of the debate that is agreed across the House is that racism is unacceptable. We saw it in the attacks that were perpetrated on members of the Indian community. As I said to the Indian community, I do not think they were targeted because they are members of the Indian community; regrettably they were targeted in many instances simply because they were migrants. Everyone in this House condemns those attacks. It is worthwhile that the message goes out to the public at large that we stand together in our condemnation of them.

It is also apparent in listening to the various contributions that people come to this debate about migration with different political viewpoints.

Many Members raised a number of issues that I will deal with briefly. Deputy Carthy mentioned and emphasised the issue about the IPAS centres, and indeed, many Sinn Féin Members in their speeches referred to "profiteering" and too much money being spent on IPAS centres. As Deputy Dolan said, I am extremely concerned about that is being spent on IPAS centres, but I ask Members to reflect on the fact that we were dealing with a crisis situation in 2022, 2023 and 2024. In those years, 45,000 people arrived seeking asylum, but on top of that 100,000 people arrived from Ukraine who were granted temporary protection. That is a figure of around 145,000 people who came in and we had to accommodate. Necessarily, that put huge pressure on the system. I will be before Deputy Carthy's committee next week when it comes to discussing IPAS in more detail, but it is important that we have a context as to the reason for contracts being entered into. I am conscious that Deputy O'Gorman must have had a challenging job when in office between 2022 and 2024 in trying to provide accommodation. It is certainly the case, and I will not elaborate on them now, that I introduced changes to system that will ensure that we are going to get better value for money.

A number of individuals spoke about the issue of international protection and asylum applicants. As I said at the outset, it is important to recognise that the number of people coming here seeking asylum, although it has grown significantly in the past three years, is a smallish percentage of the number of people coming to Ireland as migrants. The vast majority of people coming here are on visas, to work and as students. It is also lawful for a person to come here to claim asylum. As Deputy Gibney referenced, people do not have a right to asylum, but they do have a right to claim asylum. I am conscious that when I opened this debate, one thing I wanted to emphasise is that the system I want to see applied is a rules-based system. I want to re-echo that message.

Members of the Social Democrats were critical and thought I did not display a compassionate enough response in dealing with persons who were seeking asylum. I do not purport to claim that I have more compassion or less compassion than anyone else in the House. When it comes to applying an international protection system, or indeed a migration system, we have to have rules. If we do not have rules, it is going to be arbitrary. People will be coming to me saying: "Will you let this person in? This is a fine person; could you allow them to have asylum?" That is not a system that is going to operate effectively. I think I am, and Ireland is, a compassionate country. If we look in comparison to how some other European Union countries treat asylum applicants, we are very compassionate. The word has to get out that in Ireland we have a system, it is based on rules and as Minister I am going to apply those rules. If Members of this House, and they are entitled to, want to change the rules, reduce the rules or make them more amenable to people getting around them, there is a method of doing that. The way they do that is by bringing in legislation to amend the International Protection Act 2015 that is already in place.

A number of Deputies also criticised the European migration pact and said it is an interference with Irish sovereignty. When it comes to refugees, we have signed up to the 1951 Refugee Convention. It will not come as a surprise, but that is under pressure internationally. Ireland has complied with it and continues to comply with it. We comply with our international obligations when it comes to refugee applications. However, when looking at trying to deal with the movement of people internationally, it is apparent that the majority of people coming to Ireland to claim asylum are coming through other European countries, and indeed, ultimately, the vast majority are coming through the UK. We need to have an agreed position and co-operation between ourselves and other European Union countries. If we do not, we are going to find ourselves in the same way that Britain finds itself in at present. It finds itself in a situation where it thought that by leaving the European Union it was going to be able to resolve the issue it had in respect of migration. In fact, the issues that were a concern to it have got considerably worse since it left the European Union. It has no mechanism to engage with other European Union countries in trying to ensure that there are arrangements in place to deal with people.

It is regrettable that I am spending time on the issue of international protection because it is a small part of our migration. However, it is worth emphasising that the people who come here predominantly are coming here on work visas. They are wanted in the multinational sector to work. They are wanted in our hospitals. They are wanted in our construction sector. It is creating challenges because of the rise in the population. As I said at the outset, the population is increasing seven times faster than the EU average. The population increased by approximately 100,000 last year. As Deputy Fitzmaurice said, it is obviously putting pressures on the system, but if we are going to reduce the numbers, there are ways I can do it. I was interested that Deputy Carthy said we should reduce student numbers. That is something I will look at with regard to students coming in. However, there will be consequences to that. People will say that we are damaging the education sector by reducing numbers. Every action has a reaction, but we are in an unusual position.

We have handled migration pretty well in Ireland. We are only used to it for 27 or 28 years. When I was growing up, people were emigrating. I wish to pick Deputy Carthy up on one point. He said emigration from Ireland was due to the policies of Irish Governments. From 1841 onwards when the population started to declining, I think the British Government has a bit of responsibility for that as well, certainly prior to independence.

On the numbers coming in, there is a significant number with international protection. The predominant route is that people are coming from the UK into Northern Ireland and claiming their asylum this way. Deputy O'Flynn referred to people arriving at the airport. Very few applicants are made for international protection in Dublin Airport at present. Most of the applications are made directly at the IPO office. It is a real challenge to us in terms of the asylum sphere. We are hugely impacted by what happens in the UK.

We have done migration pretty well in Ireland. Anybody who goes to sports matches they will see young kids playing. We can see the diversity of groups of people who are playing sports as youngsters now. We see it throughout our community. We have done it well. Sometimes we need to give ourselves a bit of credit for it. Notwithstanding that, one of the messages that has hit me from this debate is that there is a general recognition by TDs, and this regrettably is something I have come to the view of as well, that there is a rise in racist, abusive people in Ireland. That is a matter of concern to me and I know it is a matter of concern to everybody in this House. The response to that is difficult because predominantly it is coming from youths who are under 18 years of age. We need to think we have an education obligation in respect of it. It is a societal response. We need to recognise and emphasise to people that in a republic, it is abhorrent that we would seek to criticise or discriminate against somebody because of their inherent characteristics, such as race. It has been a good debate.

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