Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this topic today because this is an area I have deep expertise in. For ten years before becoming a TD, I worked in human rights and equality and for the second half of that decade, international protection was my primary focus. I find it incredible to listen to the statements from Government representatives here today calling for action on certain elements of our international protection system when they are part of a series of governments which, term after term over the last three decades, have overseen an absolutely shambolic approach to international protection. We had direct provision for two decades where people had barely enough means to live on. The Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to provide for basic rights like the right to work and the right to access a driving licence which would allow people within the system to integrate into Irish society.

The main thing I have tracked as hugely problematic in the last ten years is the move that has taken place since I entered into this space and got involved in discussions. People used to wonder whether the Government was really that cynical, and whether the State was really trying to make it difficult and unattractive for people. Now we are at the point where the Government is openly saying that it wants to address the pull factor and does not want to attract applications from people for international protection. That is a direct denial of the right to claim asylum and it is a direct denial of the reality that 130 million people on this globe are displaced and need help. If, across the European Continent, we are in a race to the bottom to deny that right to claim asylum for people across the rest of the globe, we are on the wrong side of history.

I urge Ministers to read three books: Suad Aldarra's I Don't Want to Talk About Home; Sally Hayden's My Fourth Time, We Drowned; and for those into fiction Paul Lynch's Prophet Song. These will help them to zoom out and look at this issue in the way they need to.

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