Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Senator Healy Eames has raised a very important issue. This will have to take up a good deal of attention in the House in the coming days.

I also welcome our new Member, Senator Craughwell, and congratulate him on a stunning and dramatic political achievement. I congratulate and welcome his family too.

No doubt Senator Craughwell has heard Senator Wilson’s generous offer. The Government Senators, particularly the Whips, will hope that his experience of serving in the British and the Irish armies may lend a certain bipartisanship to his approach to politics. He may even have been offered generous pairing arrangements should he wish to absent himself on any occasion but the dynamic has changed. Those of us in this House who care and are serious about political reform should recognise the opportunity that Senator Craughwell’s election presents. The Government does not have a majority in this House. I am delighted by what Senator Norris said about conscience voting. I fully subscribe to it but it behoves those of us who care about political reform to sit down and talk to each other and present to the Government our expectations of what should happen now. Without in any way making presumptions about Senator Craughwell’s voting intentions, it is time for us to talk if we are to deliver to the public the important programme of political reform that Senator Quinn and others have done so much to champion in recent years.

I also welcome the re-announcement of the working group to examine the plight of long-term asylum seekers in this country. Of course we need the promised legislation that will guarantee a swift process for asylum applications.

In the meantime, we cannot overlook the appalling disparity in the conditions in which asylum seekers live. The amazing difference between the quality of some centres and of others, in terms of people's ability to live a normal life or cook a meal for their children, is simply unacceptable. I hope that is one of the issues the working group will take up and on which we will seek early improvement. Right now, people's human dignity in these centres is not being honoured and that has to change very quickly.