Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will have.

I move amendment No. 1:After "integration and new communities", to insert the following paragraph:

"calls on the Minister to outline to the Seanad his plans to deal with the estimated 30,000 undocumented people in Ireland and to inform the Seanad of what action, if any, he intends to take to address the humanitarian crisis in the Direct Provision System."

It is important to acknowledge that the relationship between Ireland and Poland goes much further than football and mass and that there is a much richer engagement between us. I agree with the Minister of State there are many elements to it. The PolskaÉire festival is a wonderful addition to our calendar and I hope it goes from strength to strength. However, initiatives like this do not equate to a policy or strategy. As has been confirmed, there is no national integration strategy or formal policy document yet. Therefore, it is fair to conclude that we have significant rhetoric on the issue, but not enough action.

We had a long debate earlier today about the direct provision system and the Minister of State repeated again today the statement he made previously, namely, that he will not stand over that system. I welcome that statement. However, the 4,000 plus people in that system have seen little change to their ongoing nightmare of living in direct provision. I also note that nothing has changed for the estimated 30,000 undocumented people living and working in Ireland.

The fact that Sue Conlan, CEO of the Irish Refugee Council, recently resigned from the Government's working group to reform the protection process is serious. Her reasons for doing so were to do with serious concerns about the overriding purpose of the general scheme of the International Protection Bill published on 25 March 2015. In announcing the heads of the Bill, the Minister for Justice, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, stated the "single procedure" and other reforms will allow for earlier identification of people who need international protection and those who can be returned to their country of origin. While early identification of refugees is clearly to be welcomed, the "single procedure" envisaged in the heads of the Bill is as much, if not more, concerned with speedy decisions leading to deportation as it is with early identification of refugees. The emphasis should be on a "single protection procedure" to ensure that people at risk of persecution or serious harm are granted permission to remain in Ireland. Only when that has been fully completed should there be any consideration of other reasons that could give rise to Ireland's obligations under other international conventions. Indeed Sue Conlan stated "this is an International Protection Bill and it should not be used as a means of enforcing immigration control." In addition, the complete absence of any reference to "direct provision" in the Bill is a lost opportunity, since this has been the source of both national and international criticism since its inception.

There is no legislative basis for the system of direct provision in Ireland. The current system was the brainchild of the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat Government and is based on a combination of administrative decisions and ministerial and departmental circulars. The estimated cost for direct provision to the State in 2014 was €51 million. That is just under €12,000 per resident, none of which is paid to asylum seekers themselves but rather goes to private operators who run the State's 34 direct provision centres. This is now a very lucrative business, with some speculators making profits in excess of €10.8 million, while accumulated profits come to €25 million. It is shocking to think that people are making what can only be described as immoral profit out of the misery and vulnerability of other human beings. The entire direct provision project is a costly and inhumane disaster that should be immediately phased out.