Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

First, I join the Deputy in agreeing that what we saw happen in Drogheda at the IPAS centre is the most despicable crime. It is attempted murder. It has nothing to do with a migration debate in this country - absolutely nothing. It is a horrific, almost unspeakable act where babies and young children were sleeping upstairs. Everybody in this country, regardless of their political perspective, is utterly horrified. We are all united on that.

I also join the Deputy in reiterating what I already said and what I say every time I speak about migration: migration is a good thing and migrants make a positive contribution to this country. I do not in any way doubt that. I often say that our health service would fall over if it was not for people coming in. I take the Deputy's point that they are in many other parts of our economy and our society. When you go into our schools and see the diversity, that is a good thing. I do not have any disagreement with the Deputy or anybody else on that.

I also know this: we have to have a clear migration policy. It is a statement of fact that our population has grown at a very fast rate. It is a statement of fact that for every 10,000 people who come into our country, roughly 3,000 more homes are needed. I believe it is a statement of fact that we need to look at migration in the round, we need to plan for it and we need to have a mature discussion about what is an appropriate level of migration. We need to do exactly what the Deputy has suggested, which is to go through our economy sector by sector and identify the work needs there. The Future Forty document that has been published this week by my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, is very useful in terms of analysing around 2,000 potential different scenarios regarding how our country might develop and grow in our demographics.

We need to have an evidence-based debate. The Deputy has not said it but some of the comments from his party this week were disappointing. Accusing someone of dog whistling and at the same time calling them Nigel Farage, which I think is a dog whistle, is not a mature debate.

People from other political parties immediately just call me names for stating the fact that, in my view, migration has risen at too high a rate, but it actually is not just my view. I have here a graph that uses Eurostat data. The green line shows Ireland's net migration and the blue line is the equivalent Europe and the grey line is the equivalent for the eurozone. It can be seen objectively that over the last several years our population, in terms of net migration, has risen way faster than the European average and way faster than the eurozone average, and that is a challenge. The extremes in politics, which neither the Deputy nor I is a part of, on the far left and the far right are the ones that fester when politicians of whatever stripe in the centre do not stand up and show willingness to engage, discuss and debate.

The Government intends to do two things. It intends to bring forward new legislation for international protection and there are legitimate issues that need to be addressed, including the fact that the majority of applications are refused. The Government also intends to produce a national migration strategy in 2026 to have an evidence-based, data-driven, informed discussion. I would invite people across the House to engage with that in a calm and responsible manner.

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