Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)

The Government's policy to date in the area of IPAS processing and enforcement has been reckless, farcical and absurd. The State simply could not be bothered applying its own rules. The structures of Tusla have been a sham, which was something I highlighted at an Oireachtas committee meeting just weeks ago. Sadly, just a few days after that, we saw the end result of this reckless policy when a ten-year-old girl was raped or sexually assaulted by someone not even entitled to be here and for whom there was a deportation order issued that the Government simply had not bothered to enforce.

I received a reply from the Minister's office, which stated: "As there are no routine exit checks at Irish borders, it is not possible to accurately provide the number of people who are currently in Ireland subject to deportation orders.". There you have it.

The Committee of Public Accounts has heard that the State spent an estimated €2.1 billion on IPAS last year. That means €2.1 billion of the public's hard-earned money went to cowboy speculators.

How did we get to this sorry state of affairs? Until recently, any attempt by ordinary decent people, who are the vast majority, to have a rational or reasonable discussion on this subject was shut down by the State and its institutions in all its different guises. It was obvious this was a dangerous, reckless and unhealthy head-in-the-sand approach by the Government that left a vacuum into which stepped a tiny number with divisive and malign intent. The Government handed it to them on a plate. Why would it not, when it is ourselves that are getting attacked on the issue moreso than the Government that is responsible? So, it was a win-win situation for the Government. The Government that engineered the problem is now frantically searching for scapegoats and PR stunts to put the genie back in the bottle. Over many years as a councillor I exposed this farce. Sinn Féin has been clear from the beginning that where a person is not entitled to be in Ireland they should be returned safely to their country of origin and the deportation order should be both enforced and tracked. We need to have the powers to return immediately those who are not entitled to be here.

An Irish Government is best placed to make decisions in the interests of the Irish people, not unelected bureaucrats in Brussels or faceless EU institutions that make the decisions for us, undermining our democracy and our sovereignty. Protocol 21 of the Lisbon Treaty has given the Government the opt-out clause for certain measures. However, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and others opted into the EU migration pact which comes into force next June.

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