Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Furthermore, there are potential legal difficulties arising from section 5 which would require the revocation of deportation orders lawfully made, thus calling into the question the basis on which the order was made in the first place. Accordingly, and for the reasons which I have already outlined, the Minister is opposed to the Bill even at a conceptual level.

The Minister hopes that Senators will acknowledge the efforts being made by the Government to address long standing and difficult issues relating to Ireland's protection system. In that regard, the Minister wishes to make it clear to the House that the Government intends to proceed with its planned course of action on the legislation front and looks forward to receiving the recommendations of the working group to report on the improvements that can be made to the current protection system, pending the introduction of the protection Bill.

A number of issues were raised with regard to the establishment of the aforementioned working group. The chairman is the former High Court judge, Mr. Justice Bryan MacMahon, who is an excellent choice. He has been present at all of the confirmation of citizenship ceremonies for the last four years. Those ceremonies are testament to the Government's commitment to the regularisation of the status of asylum seekers who come to this country. The chairman will be writing to working group members in the coming days and the first meeting is expected to take place in the week commencing 02 November. I will raise Senator van Turnhout's question about additional members on that working group with the Minister. The terms of reference for the working group were announced last week.

Direct provision was referred to by several Senators today and one of the terms of reference of the working group is that members would consider what improvements could be made to the direct provision system. As I read it, direct provision is still Government policy and the working group will be examining how the system can be improved. I hope that clarifies matters in that regard.

I thank Senator Norris for raising this very important issue. Although I am standing in for the Minister today, this is an issue that I face almost every Monday evening in my clinic in the Grand Hotel in Tralee, County Kerry. I can really empathise with those people who have been waiting so long for their situation to be regularised. Hopefully, the commitment I have given here on behalf of the Minister will be fulfilled so that by next June we will have a structure in place that will give hope to those people who wish to regularise their status.