Brendan Ryan (Labour)

As the Minister knows and many have explained, the Dublin Convention has not worked. Therefore, to try to use as an argument something that has never worked, never been applied and never been tested is vacuous.

We are talking here about people who will have no documents. That is the fundamental reality – the Minister has spoken a lot about getting real. In every conflict in the world, of which there are many, there are people desperately trying to get out. The last thing these decent and persecuted people will do is ask their state authorities for permission to leave. When people crossed the Berlin Wall while being fired at by their own police force, no one asked them for documentation because it would have been nonsensical to do so. When thousands crossed the Border here in 1969 in the face of considerable hostility, no one from Senator Mansergh's party asked them to prove they were entitled to our hospitality because we knew they were people in need. People in need do not carry papers.