Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will be supporting this legislation. I congratulate the Minister and Paul on their great news. My issue concerns the roughly 200 unaccompanied minors who come into the country every year. What happens to them? I am not sure what we can do about this situation, but I sometimes have the privilege of looking after these children when they arrive at Dublin Airport. They come into my home. Hearing a child who is arriving without a parent in a strange country and into a strange house, wailing and crying for his or her parent or parents and other loved ones they have left behind in another country is possibly the saddest thing anyone can ever go through.

What happens to those children then is that they end up being taken by Tusla into the care system. Some of those children may stay in the care system, even without having any legal status, when they turn 18 years old and go into direct provision. Some social workers do take out international protection orders for the children but some do not. My concern is for those children and to be a voice for those children who are basically without any status here, despite having been here for perhaps the last ten or 12 years. They might have come here when they were four or five years old, having been put on a plane that arrived here. That is despite the fact that we have no direct flights to anywhere in Africa. When those children turn 18 years old here they do not have any status. That is an issue the Minister might need to look at during her time in office and I would like her to look after those children who have no status.