Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I genuinely appreciate the offer of the Minister of State to continue to work with me on this Bill. I think we differ on the means in this instance, but we share the end that we wish to achieve. I see that from the work we have done on other issues together.We differ on the best routes to achieve that end, but I am very happy that the door is and will remain open. We will continue to work together on this and other issues.

There are many reasons it is right to support the Bill and send it to the Dáil where it will be in the capable hands of Deputy Fiona O'Loughlin who will steer it on its passage though the Lower House. They include the 65.5 million people forcibly displaced throughout the world; the 22.5 million refugees worldwide; the more than 11 million child refugees who are vulnerable to many dangers; the 1 million people, of whom 600,000 are children, with cholera in Yemen where public health and sanitation services have broken down because of war; and the 1 million people who risked their lives to reach Europe by sea. The reason there is strain on countries such as Italy which take a disproportionate number of refugees may be we need to do more in Ireland. If we do not want to see a reaction, we must play our part and share the load. Other reasons to support the Bill are the 4,500 people missing in the Mediterranean who attempted to cross in inadequate and dangerous boats in the hope of reaching safety, the 900,000 Rohingya refugees who were displaced and ethnically cleansed to Bangladesh and the 2,700 people who ought to have been welcomed to Ireland to meet our pledge to welcome 4,000 refugees under the Irish Refugee Protection Programme. Which of us would not flee and seek international protection if we were in the same desperate and unimaginable position as many of those mentioned who are in it through no fault of our own but by accident of birth or geography?

People who have fled have given their reasons having a decent system of family reunification for refugees and their families is so important. They are reasons all Members will recognise. A recently interviewed person who is originally from Syria said: "It wasn’t a decision to come to Ireland – it was to Europe, any place where I can be safe, try to get my family, live my life like any normal person." A man who had fled from Sudan said: "One of the hardest things – going from [being] a father and husband and brother to just a piece of luggage." A person from the Central African Republic said:

I was very happy [to receive refugee status] but still very disturbed because still up until that time I had no answer from the Red Cross apart from saying that they have received my file and they are doing the search [for his family]. I was still very perplexed and so that was the feeling. [We went a longer time period than 12 months because such searches for families can take a very long time when people are in very uncertain circumstances.] I was happy to have the refugee status but ... I don’t have any soil under the legs because I was still looking for my family, for my children ... My life was all about my family. Even today, it is all about them.

A person from Sudan said:

Before my family got here, I sometimes did nothing – nothing important. I’d get up every morning and then try and find something to make myself helpful ... I went to the college – still I am in college. But I was not settled, I was not happy. I was worried. But when I got them here, I am feeling much more settled, thinking positive things.

They are reasons given by people who are directly affected by our family reunification arrangements and for whom we could make things better by supporting the Bill. I have my reasons for doing so and, if Senators dig deep, they will have their own.

During the summer I read a book entitled,East West Street, by Phillipe Sands, a human rights lawyer. It tells the life story of Hersch Lauterpacht, one of the principal architects of the internationally recognised law covering crimes against humanity. His work on an international Bill of Rights for the individual inspired the UN Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. He had lost most of his family in the Holocaust but was able to bring his niece, Inka, to England. She watched through the window as her mother was arrested and saw her father running out after her. She never saw them again and was left to fend for herself at the age of 12 years. Hersch Lauterpacht brought her to safety in Cambridge, thus uniting what was left of his family. Under our family reunification rules, he would not be able to do so as of right and that must change. In London next week I will be meeting friends, many of whom are second or third generation Jewish refugees. Some lost large numbers of their families, while, thankfully, others escaped and brought their families with them to safety in England. A restrictive family reunification regime might have left my friends behind, never to have the chance of a good or any life.

I first time came across the word "refugee" when, with my father, a butcher, I was taking a gift of parcels of meat to Kilworth Camp in Cork where people who had fled from the North to the South which was safer during the Troubles were given refuge. It was the first time I had met refugees and I was eight or nine years old. My father taught me a lesson for life: to be kind and generous and extend the hand of friendship, especially in people's hour of need. The International Protection (Family Reunification) (Amendment) Bill recognises and addresses these sentiments and all of the reasons I have given. Senators will have their own. I am very pleased to have the support of the House to send the Bill to the Dáil where it may be improved. I hope the Minister of State and his colleagues will do so before exposing it to the chill of a money message.