Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

When the Government decided to purchase Citywest as a public IPAS centre, I found out in the national newspapers. No information was supplied to Opposition TDs.

On 17 June, I asked the Taoiseach if the Government was purchasing Citywest. I did not get an answer. At the same time, the Minister for justice was on the plinth outside announcing the purchase of Citywest.

Residents of Saggart and Opposition TDs are finding out information from the media and not from the Government. This is simply unacceptable and it has led to mistrust of the Government among the people of Saggart. This mistrust is still prevalent today.

We have been calling for meaningful engagement from the Government for the local community about the Citywest centre. Government will cite the meetings that it has had with the community engagement team as meaningful but meaningful meetings need to have positive outcomes.

I mean no disrespect to the people who are from the Department who are on this community engagement team. They are simply the wrong people. We need people at these meetings who are from different Departments who can also make decisions. Information I received today indicated there have been 15 meetings so far but nothing has really happened. Rathcoole Garda station is still only manned part-time. There is no long-term commitment to increase the visibility of policing in Saggart. There is no increase in school places or places on school buses and there are no increases in medical services, such as public health nurses.

When the Government decided it was going to house people seeking international protection in Citywest, it did not do an audit of the services that were in Citywest to see what impact this was going to have on the community. In fact, as we speak, there are fewer services in Citywest then there were when the Government purchased the facility. The gym is closed, leaving 3,000 members stranded without that facility, and the restaurant is closed. The Minister said he was going to do everything in his power to keep those open. I again urge him to do that.

The violent sexual assault of a ten-year-old girl at Citywest has left the community devastated and afraid. Questions need to be answered. How did a child under the care of Tusla end up in Citywest in the first place? Why was the person who was arrested for this crime still in the country, despite having a deportation order for months? These are genuine questions that I have been asked, which the Government must answer and that people need to held accountable for. People applying for international protection are subject to the rules of this country. Nobody will argue with that. These rules are not enforced and people are not processed quickly. If people have not got the right to be in this country, they should be processed quickly and returned to their country of origin as safely as possible. This is what Sinn Féin would do and this is what Government has been failing to do.

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