Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very welcome. I congratulate him on his election as leader of the Green Party and wish him the best of health and success.

We are speaking about migration. I agree with what Senator McDowell said about migration, which is very different from people seeking international protection and asylum. They are two very different things. However, when someone sees a person who is different from them on the street and feels hate, such people are bundled together. When the Government deals with such people, it must parcel them up together and that has caused a fudge on many of the issues.

It has been acknowledged by all across this House that Irish people are no strangers to emigration. There are thousands of people of Irish descent in every corner of the world. I am constantly reminded of the fact that in the summer of 1847, some 40,000 Irish people arrived in Toronto in a three-month period. The population of Toronto in May 1847 was 20,000, but they took us in. We were starving. We did not speak the language. We had diseases. Thankfully, many churches and religious organisations built hospitals and homes and took us in. Look at Toronto now. There is a very strong Irish connection because of those 40,000 people who flooded that small city.

We look at the reasons people want to come to Ireland. We could go down a bad path and say that it is easy to come here, and that we take the best care of them. In reality, it is because it is a very good country and we provide opportunities. We have tried our very best to make people welcome, but in some situations we have failed. Direct provision has been a complete failure and because of the current situation, we did not succeed in closing direct provision centres. That is because of the consequences of today's political and global reality.

We do need people in this country. It has been said many times that Ireland is at full employment. Many employers report skills shortages. Business owners say they cannot get people to work for them. We are crying out for people. We need people to support and grow our economy in the future. We must look at the reasons we have such pressures on our system and why so many people are coming here. It is because the world is in such turmoil at the moment. As an aside, we must work to secure peace, as conflict is displacing people. The conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza are displacing people. We must work to stop that destruction. How many more lives are going to be lost before the parties involved in all the conflicts secure peace and take the security of their people seriously? The real tragedy is that peace will eventually be brokered but we need people to work more diligently to secure it rather than on destruction. I commend the Fianna Fáil leader and Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, on his work. He constantly explains Ireland's position, in particular on Gaza. As a leader, he is making sure that Ireland is on the right side of history.

We could look at many different circumstances where the State has great difficulties due to the influx of people. Migration will continue. We have a good and welcoming country, but we must make a concerted effort to ensure people are welcome. That is important for social cohesion. An underlying narrative sometimes boils over that crime and social unrest are due to migration and the person whom we do not know, who has a funny name and looks different from us. We must resist that. People who put out those lies heighten fears and continue to blame crime on immigration. It is as if we lived in some sort of utopia where we had no murder, rape or crime before the first foreigner came into the country. It is very easy to go down that rabbit hole on social media. There are differences, but let us be real: we must not let irrational fears take over. We must look at the human beings and see what they need and what they can offer and embrace the difference.

In order for there to be social cohesion and for people to continue to trust in it, we must trust in the system. That brings me to the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee. Significant resources are required by the Department of Justice to recruit staff to it and the IPAS centre to reduce processing times. Senator McDowell spoke about the difficulty with deportation. We must look at how we can deal with the situation. If someone does not qualify for international protection, that person must leave the country. If people do not abide by our laws, they must leave the country. We cannot allow people to stay here if they do not abide by the law. As the Minister will be aware, the number of such people is very low, but it affects trust in the system. The normal Mary and Joe on the street say they want the Department of Justice to take this seriously. There are safe countries and when people are from them, we process the applications quickly and if they should be here, they are allowed to stay here.

We must create proper access and pathways to employment. We must look at a person's skills and ask what he or she can offer. Most of the time these people can offer so much to us. Speakers have referred to the people who work in the health service. When a family member was in Beaumont Hospital recently, we did not meet an Irish doctor or nurse. That is the reality. The only difference is that I had to speak a little bit slower and tone down my Louth accent for them to understand me. We need these people. We must welcome them. When we distrust those who seek asylum, in turn, we distrust those who are here working – the nurses and doctors – and those who are here for their families and for very good reasons. There are such people all over the country working as cleaners, bus drivers and taxi drivers. We risk there being distrust in them and that they will feel vulnerable.

The Minister referred to the new accommodation strategy. He worked on the situation concerning the D Hotel in County Louth. Transparency and value for money are important. We must be able to trust the system. He said the strategy is already delivering and several State-owned sites have been brought into immediate use. That is good, but in addition to trust in the system, we must ensure we get value for money and that we are not paying extortionate amounts to people. People in County Louth were very disappointed with what happened. They are sick of money being wasted. What happened in Drogheda was a mess. I refer to the procurement of the hotel where 500 beds were promised but only 250 were allowed. There was great disappointment with that, and learning that we were sold a pup. The Department must ensure the learnings are quickly taken on board. I hope more safeguards are put in place and the economic impacts are considered in future.Hopefully, we will not even have to consider too many private operations when we are going through our new accommodation strategy. I again reiterate that when we are accommodating our international protection applicants, we need transparency, value for money and for the community to be able to trust and know what is happening. When we do not know what is over the fence and when we do not know what is beyond the door, that is when we ask questions and that is when the stories are made up. Therefore, transparency, welcomeness and value for money are needed.