Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh míle maith agat a Leas-Chathaoirligh. Tá áthas orm a bheith ag leanúint an Seanadóir Conway agus an Seanadóir Lawless ar an ábhar seo. Fáiltím roimh na ráitis laidre atá déanta acu. The Minister of State is very welcome to the House.There has been a little bit of political light-footedness on this issue. We were actually calling for a debate around the International Protection Act 2015, its implementation and direct provision. Certainly, the integration strategy is very welcome. It is a very laudable strategy and I welcome it. There are some fantastic initiatives in it. The elephant in the room, however, has to be direct provision. I note that there was no mention of direct provision or the International Protection Act 2015 in the Minister of State's speech. I might be subject to correction on that, but I do not think either of them were referenced. They are really the elephants in the room with regard to this issue.

Will the Minister of State give us a clear statement of where he stands on direct provision? It is very important. I have been extremely critical in these Houses over recent years of direct provision and of the way it has been introduced. Direct provision was dreamt up on the back of a cigarette packet by a Fianna Fáil Government. It is a privatised system which has been called an open prison. For the people who live there the only difference between it and an open prison is that they do not know when their sentences will end. I engage with people who are staying in the direct provision system regularly and their sense of hopelessness at the moment is much greater now than it was before the McMahon report. They feel the report was a whitewash and that it has actually cemented direct provision and formalised it within the system, even though, at the time, it was brought in as a temporary measure which was not supposed to last more than a year. How can a Government stand over a system like this? There is no HIQA oversight. I welcome the recent extension of oversight to the Ombudsman and the Ombudsman for Children because there are many issues around direct provision that the people within the system wanted to raise.

If this is framed in the context of the Minister of State's own migrant integration strategy, there is a vision for that strategy which has a number of key elements. The first is that, "The basic values of Irish society are respected by all". Most people in Ireland would say it is a basic value to be able to have one's own roof over one's head. People in direct provision do not have that right. They are housed within a system in which whole families are living in one hotel room and where, as Senator Lawless has correctly outlined, there may be four individuals of the same sex staying together in one room. Some of them may have mental health issues. That is absolutely true. I can point them out to the Minister of State in the Eglinton Hotel or the Great Western Hotel in Galway if he would like. Individuals are staying in rooms with other people who are absolute strangers to them and may be there for a number of years.

The right to education is also something that people in Ireland would certainly respect and honour. This Government and our State still have not signed up to the EU directives on the right to work and the right to education. Can the Minister of State tell us when we are going to live up to our international commitments around these rights? I know there were a number of positive developments in the McMahon report concerning the right to education that would recognise the rights of younger people going on to third level education, but they were very restricted. Unless children have been in the secondary school system for five years they cannot access the grants available to allow them to access third level education. There have been some fantastic philanthropic initiatives in which certain people have sponsored people into third level - I know that from my own experience - but the State should recognise the rights of all these young people within the direct provision system. They should be allowed a right to work and a right to education.

The second value in the vision which I note is that, "Migrants are enabled and expected to participate in economic life – in employment and self-employment". How does that pertain to people in direct provision? I have met bankers, journalists, record producers, nurses, carpenters and an astrophysicist, all of whom are in the direct provision system. They are fantastic people. Anybody who has the wherewithal to make it from whatever war-torn country or whatever difficulties they were in, to get to Ireland and land in a direct provision system had huge resourcefulness within them. They are fantastic people but they feel bereft within a system that does not allow them to work. What is the Minister of State going to do about that, because it needs to be addressed?

"Migrants interact with the host community and participate with them in cultural, sporting and other activities while preserving also their own traditions as they wish." That is very important. Next Saturday in Galway is Africa Day. We celebrate that every year and it is a wonderful occasion. My children love it because of the food, the colour, the dance, etc. A lot of the people there are, again, in direct provision. They are people who would certainly love to be able to get their own space in the community.

"Migrants have language skills sufficient to enable them to participate in economic life and in the wider society." There has been a huge issue recently, of which the Minister of State will be aware, around the implementation of the International Protection Act 2015. The new single procedure process involves a lengthy and quite complex questionnaire. I have been at a number of public meetings with solicitors who work with people in direct provision, people in direct provision themselves and organisations such as Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, MASI, the Irish Refugee Council, Doras Luimní, Nasc, etc. That questionnaire caused absolute consternation. I know the deadline for applying was extended. There were issues around the language used in it. There were translations of that document available, but my understanding was that the translations were appalling in many cases. People had great difficulty understanding what they were doing. There were questions around whether Google Translate had been used. There was a huge issue around access to people with language skills who could translate for people in asylum.

There are also issues around access to legal advice on filling out that questionnaire. There are not enough people available through the legal services for people seeking asylum in this country. There are issues with the quality of the knowledge that some of those people have and them not having enough expertise in the specific area of asylum, which is a very complex legal area. The Minister of State might address that and let us know how that process is progressing.

"Migrants, and particularly their children, benefit fully from the education system." I have mentioned education but the direct provision system is appalling for children. It is appalling for families that children have to be supervised outside a room if they are in a hotel-type building. They have to supervised in any of the communal areas because there are child protection issues. Children are not able to bring others home. If children have a birthday party, they do not have any space in that building to bring guests up to their own rooms. The natural domestic life an Irish family would take for granted is not afforded to those people in direct provision. There has been talk of extending the self-catering opportunities available to people in direct provision. I am not sure how successful that has been but when one has only €19.80 a week, making food available and being able to cook in those centres is certainly questionable.

I agree that direct provision needs to go. We are spending above and beyond €53 million a year. How accountable are the companies for the €53 million that is being spent? My understanding is that some of these companies have made over €10 million in recent years. Some of these companies are listed offshore, so we cannot see their accounts, etc. Why is this system not being run in a more humane way? Why do we not have a State-run system or one that is run by a non-governmental organisation? Why do we not have a system in which much more accountability, training and services would be available? The staff in many direct provision centres are very good people but they have no specific training in the necessary aspects of the job around social work, psychology or health. I have visited quite a number of centres. The Oireachtas joint committee produced a report on it as well.

We will go easy this time, but we will be calling the Minister of State back for another debate on direct provision in the very near future and we will expect movement to have been made toward the eradication of direct provision before we have an international scandal on our hands.