Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Labour Party group I thank you very much, a Chathaoirligh, for your tribute to the late Niamh Breathnach. Niamh left a tremendous legacy in this country as Minister for Education, not only due to the abolition of fees but especially for her introduction of the Breaking the Cycle programme for schools in disadvantaged communities. As a personal friend to me and many others in the Labour Party, she was an enormous source of encouragement to many of us trying to make our start in politics in recent years. I extend our deepest sympathies to Tom and to all her family.

I want to touch on the refugee crisis again today. We have seen polling over the weekend, and it should come as no surprise to any of us that there are many people who believe Ireland is not coping with the surge in refugees. People are looking at some refugees being housed in tents and substandard accommodation and all the while we have so many deep-seated issues being experienced by people who have been living here for many years, in terms of housing and health. It is obvious that those tensions would exist, but I believe the vast majority of people know deep down that we should be providing safety, security and shelter to those who are fleeing personal persecution or coming from countries that are not currently safe to live in.

I raise the issue in the context of comments we have seen from both the Minister for Justice and the Fianna Fáil spokesperson on justice in recent days. Their comments are extremely dangerous. They are designed to deflect from the failures we have had in this country to cope with the surge in refugees. We have known for almost 12 months that we are going to have a very significant increase in numbers. Last April, it was floated that up to 200,000 people could come to this country, yet we are still unable to cope. We are still only talking about the construction of modular homes. We know that the HSE has offered up to 300 properties to the International Protection Accommodation Services, IPAS, and they have yet to be taken up. The list goes on.

We saw comments as late as last night from the Fianna Fáil spokesperson on justice that those coming to this country without proper documentation should effectively be turned away at the airport and deported. Not only is that a deflection from the Government failure to plan and to cope with what has happened in this country in the past 12 months, it is also very dangerous because it feeds the misinformation that exists and it is also undermining the process of asylum application in this country.

The reality is that for many years IPAS has failed abysmally to meet its own targets for processing international protection applications within six months. It takes between one year and two years to process the applications. Fewer staff are processing international applications now than was the case previously. They have been very good up to now, but in recent days the two main parties in the Government are feeding the frenzy that exists and the deep-seated concern people have about communities coping. I sincerely ask that the two main Government parties reflect and change their tune given the very dangerous situation.