Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to pick up on the comments from Senator Mullen earlier on comments made by Deputy Nolan. I do not doubt the Senator's sincerity whatsoever but I am from a constituency where this sort of conversation or tone has been happening in recent weeks. Colleagues might have listened to a disgraceful interview on "Today with Claire Byrne" this morning. Those are not the views of people in Tipperary but I have been hearing an undertone for weeks that we need to have a cap on refugees coming in because we need to look after our own. Those are disgraceful comments and they should not be followed but this has been happening for quite some time and the narrative is that the only reason we do not want the refugees is the accommodation they are being given. That is utter rubbish and it is not true. All anyone has to do is listen to the contributions of the four Ukrainian MPs who were here last week. Lesia Vasylenko has been in nine different European countries and she has said that the treatment that Ukrainian refugees are receiving in Ireland is second to none. They were leaving Ireland to go to the UK to ask the UK to follow what Ireland does to care for Ukrainian refugees. The narrative that people like Deputy Mattie McGrath and others are using is dividing and worrying people in my community and it is creating a narrative that Irish people are being left behind because we are looking after Ukrainians on a temporary basis. This is utterly unacceptable and should not be stood for.

We have a situation that will develop in the coming weeks. The House will remember that when we first took in Ukrainian refugees there was no need for visas and they were allowed in; all they had to do was say they were Ukrainian at the airport. That was the right thing to do and that has been successful. We have an emerging problem in that people want to go home but they cannot do so because they do not have passports or papers. They cannot leave Ireland and because we are not in the Schengen zone, they cannot travel through the EU to get back to Ukraine. We need the EU or the Minister for Foreign Affairs to bring in measures so that people who want to leave Ireland to go home can do so. We have a crazy situation where they have to apply for passports, which will take six months, or they can get a certificate people would normally get if they lost their passport or something like that. However, because of the conflict in Ukraine and the challenges we know the embassy is having in Ireland, those certificates cannot be got either. We have a crazy situation where people want to go home but they cannot leave Ireland. That needs to be resolved and that would help with all the other problems we have.

Instead of talking in a narrative of comments that border on the line of racism, we should look at solutions to help these people, including people who want to return home. We should do that rather than dividing people and almost saying we should not be looking after them. If we were not looking after them, who is it suggested should look after them?