Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was not going to speak but we need an honest debate in this House about asylum, refugees and economic migrants. That debate has to be framed by the notion and the belief that diversity is a positive thing and not de facto a negative thing. We should have our conversations and discussions in that light. I was an economic migrant for 17 years. I never felt like and never was a burden on the country in which I worked. People seek asylum and flee countries for a variety of reasons. Some are to do with wars, despots and people destroying their own people in a fashion that none of us here can possibly imagine. People also leave for other reasons. People left Ireland in the 1950s and went to other places because they were gay. I know for a fact that women leave countries that are considered to be welcoming and not in difficulty because they are experiencing domestic violence. We need to understand and have this debate in its fullness. I pay tribute to my own home town of Macroom, which has stretched out the hand of friendship, as it rightly should, to people seeking asylum who are living in direct provision centres there. Rural Ireland is not all one and the same. We need to promote the positives as well as the negatives. Once that debate is respectful, I am happy to have it. We should not slice and dice between genuine and non-genuine asylum seekers, or pit local people facing a housing crisis against people who are coming to the country for the refuge which we rightly offer and to which end we have signed international obligations. Once we have that understanding, I am very happy for us to have this debate. If we do not have that, it will be a waste of time. It will just fuel the rhetoric that can be found at times outside this House and that leads to the kind of horrible experiences recently undergone by Deputy Martin Kenny and his family.