David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and congratulate him on his appointment. I think he will be a good Minister of State. His heart is in the right place on this matter. That leaves me a little bit puzzled by the flaccid amendment the Government has put down. I do not think it is necessary. The world would not collapse if this motion went through. I compliment my colleagues on putting down this important motion.
Senator Naughton referred to economic migrants. They have a very good case. I cannot think of a better reason for getting out of a country than being subjected to grinding poverty, misery and squalor. Many of the refugees drifting towards Italy and being drowned are coming because of grinding poverty. In some circumstances we caused that poverty. This country built the largest factory trawler on earth, The Celtic Dawn. When it was banned from European Union waters it was sent to Senegal where it destroyed the indigenous fishing industry. The Senegalese then came to Europe where they were dismissed as economic migrants. We caused a situation and then blamed the victims. I would be happy to include them.
Of course this small island cannot take in all the world’s refugees but it is noticeable that we are very sympathetic when a famine occurs in Ethiopia or elsewhere but when it gets a bit closer to home we hear stories about people sponging. I have heard respectable people say they get free cars and cigarettes from the State. That is absolute rubbish and balderdash. When this was introduced in 1999 it was to be for a period of six months. Now people are there for ten or 12 years, and not allowed to work. This is the only country apart from Transylvania or some place in Europe that does not allow people to work, which is stupid. They are excluded from social housing and from social welfare. They receive €19.50 a week whereas the providers of this accommodation which is contracted out earn €50 million. There is a hell of a contrast between €50 million and €19.50.
The fact that people have been here for so long means they need education. There are several young people, including a young woman I read about, who is ready to go to university, like all her colleagues at school but she is not entitled to free university education. She has been told that as a foreigner she must pay three times the amount an Irish person has to pay, €10,000. How does one get that on €19.50 a week?

Some 4,360 people were being accommodated at the end of 2013. Some 2,872 of them were being accommodated in 851 family units. What is a family unit when one cannot cook, use one's own cultural traditions, eat the food one is used to or see one's parents cooking? Although the numbers have declined by 46% since the peak in 2005, the average length of time spent by residents has increased. We have a decrease in the number of people applying and an increase in the amount of time they are kept in the system. That is very worrying. Almost 70% of the people - the exact figure is 68.2% - have been in the system for three years or more.
I would like to speak about the most extraordinary situation in Mount Trenchard. I applaud Mrs. Justice Harding Clark for drawing attention to this matter. As a result of a protest that was organised, some of the inmates were transferred within ten minutes. That was obviously a punishment. A group of people who went in to see the situation was were denied entry by the owner of the facility, Mr. Hyde. What does the contractor have to do with people's human rights? The same concerns apply in respect of the issue of health care. There is no provision for the Department of Health to have any responsibility or oversight for the welfare of people in this situation. It is alleged that some women are being forced into prostitution to make money to look after their families. The Ombudsman for Children, Ms Emily Logan, who is a highly respected person, has complained strongly about it.
I wish to put a number of recommendations to the Government. They are not my own - they come from other sources. First of all, we need to know the facts. There should be an audit. We should forget about all these commissions of inquiry. That sort of stuff is wearying because it always means the issues get kicked into touch. It would be simple enough to do an audit to ascertain whether our provision of asylum care meets our international human rights obligations. Those who are still awaiting a decision after a year should be entitled to supplementary welfare allowance, as any other destitute person in this State would be. Various sections are quoted in the briefing document that has been provided to me. If the full rate of supplementary welfare allowance is not granted, the rate paid to asylum seekers should be increased to €65 a week for adults and to €38 a week for children. When the Government guillotined the Social Welfare and Pensions (No. 2) Bill 2009 as it was going through the Dáil, it axed the habitual residence provision. I believe this should be opened up again. It is not tolerable that a significant provision in this sensitive area of human rights and welfare was guillotined without being debated in either House of the Irish Parliament. I put it to the Minister of State that this should be opened up for examination.
Before I make a final point as an addendum to the very important Northern Ireland case, I would like to pick up on Senator Mullen's hope that the Government is not afraid on policy grounds to improve the current situation, which it accepts is disastrous, on the basis that it might prove an allurement to other people to come here, particularly from the United Kingdom. Such an attitude would be a very nasty one, but it seems to be reflected in the current policy. I would like to refer to a recent article by Carl O'Brien in The Irish Times, which quoted from a 12-page Government document on this issue:

Although the system is "not ideal", any improvements raise the risk of asylum seekers from the UK moving here to avail of better conditions ... "Leaving aside the considerable difficulty in putting in place alternative reception conditions for those asylum seekers already here ... the biggest concern would be the 'pull factor' involved," the papers say.

It is an established fact that the Government had set its face against making improvements in case they would attract more asylum seekers. There has been a decline in the figures in question because our punitive system, which is against people, makes it less attractive to be here. I have spoken to some asylum seekers. I compliment them on being here today. They are dignified and well presented. Some of them come from my own native land - the Congo. When I asked one of them where he comes from, he said he comes from Mosney. It is an awful thing to have to say that one comes from Mosney. When I was a kid, Mosney was a holiday camp.
I will conclude by speaking about the Northern Ireland case with reference to a sentence from the judge's deliberations that was not quoted by my colleague, Senator Mullen. The judge in that case quashed a request from the United Kingdom Government to send a Sudanese asylum seeker and her three children back to Sudan. He said, in addition to what was quoted by Senator Mullen, "that the well-being, both emotionally and financially of the primary care giver and the importance of that to the well-being of the children in her care would point significantly to the best interests of the children being to remain in Northern Ireland". The authorities 90 miles up the road are so significantly better than us at providing conditions for those seeking asylum that a High Court judge decided to quash an order from the United Kingdom Government. That is a reproach to all of us. I know the Minister of State's heart is in the right place. He must be reassured by the fact that virtually every speaker, with differing degrees of passion or commitment, has spoken about the need to reform this area of Irish life.