Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

It does not exist. It is a myth. It is easy to say that there is a secret file somewhere and, since it is secret, one cannot disprove its existence, but it is not true.

From the moment I became Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, I had to grapple with a situation which at that time involved in the order of 10,000 to 12,000 asylum seekers coming into the country annually. That was causing problems for the State. When people are motivated by a desire to be politically correct and avoid giving any hostages to fortune to those of extreme views, they tend sometimes to avert their eyes from what is actually happening.

This year, I will spend €120 million from my departmental budget on the phenomenon of asylum seeking. In 2003, total State expenditure was approximately €340 million on processing asylum seekers. I introduced legislation to control what I considered to be the more extreme abuses of the asylum seeking system. I make no bones about this; I did it with a view to reducing the flow of asylum seekers because, on investigation, nine out of ten cases — which are either heard to completion or which are not abandoned when people disappear from the system having made a claim to get their toe in the door — are found not to be entitled to refugee status. Those huge sums of money are currently being channelled into this particular area. On behalf of the Irish people, I have to make fair-minded decisions about that. I make no apology to anyone for that. I have to do it.

Of the 640 civil servants on the immigration side in my Department, over 420 deal with asylum seeking, as was said earlier. This causes me grief as well because I want to run a more efficient immigration service where the telephone is answered more than two days a week for two hours, as we were told during this debate, where people get their decisions on immigration quicker and more comprehensively, and where more time is available to decide whether a group of people coming in from Bangladesh were or were not a bona fide theatre travel company. I would love to have resources available for those purposes, but we live in a real world of limited resources.

When one is spending €340 million from the Exchequer on asylum seekers and two thirds of one's complement of civil servants in the area are devoted to this phenomenon, one has to ask oneself at some point: "What can I do to prevent abuses?" I brought forward carrier liability legislation and legislation forcing asylum seekers to engage in the process more comprehensively. I did that and I was criticised roundly for doing so. Members in the Chamber will remember the debate, where I took a fair amount of stick for this fortress Ireland concept that I had.