Seanad debates

Thursday, 8 February 2018

10:30 am

Photo of Paul GavanPaul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise awareness this morning of a demonstration taking place today at 1 p.m. outside Leinster House. People from the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, MASI, will be outside calling on the Government to uphold the Supreme Court decision to give asylum seekers a right to work in Ireland. In May of last year the Supreme Court ruled that a blanket prohibition on asylum seekers working in Ireland was unconstitutional. It took until November for the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, to indicate how the State would respond to this ruling. As we all know, his response was entirely unacceptable.

Under the Government's new chosen regime, if an asylum seeker wants to enter PAYE employment, the job must not be one that an EU citizen can take up. It must pay more than €30,000 per year. Asylum seekers have been blacklisted from over 70 sectors of our economy, including those of hospitality, retail and health. These are ridiculous limits. Everyone can acknowledge that these are ridiculous limits - that is exactly why they have been set. This is the clearest indication from the Government that it does not want these people here, does not want them to work and wants to encourage them to leave.

If the Supreme Court's focus was on the dignity and inherent right of the individual, then we should all agree that the Government has once again failed to uphold our Constitution. No one here should be surprised when we have over 4,000 people living in detention camps throughout our country. They are living on €20 per week with no cooking facilitates and no prospect of employment, education or integration into our society.

Rather than simply driving past these people, I encourage colleagues to take five or ten minutes to have a conversation with them, link in with them and understand the horrendous conditions they are suffering. Let us be clear. The rules suggested by the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, indicate one thing and one thing only: racism. It is a racist response from the Government. It is a disgrace and I will be asking for a debate on the issue.

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