Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)

The Minister of State is very welcome. I thank him for coming in to debate the matter of migration. I acknowledge his work and that of the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, in the Department over the last period since this area has come back to the Department of justice. First of all, I want to join with the Minister of State in condemning racist attacks and the attacks that took place over the summer on young Indian children. That is deplorable, and it needs to be rightly condemned. I acknowledge the work of the Minister of State and others in meeting Indian representatives here in this country to express our condemnation of those attacks and intimidation and to show that is wrong and should not be tolerated in this country.

The importance of migrants to our economy and to our healthcare system, in particular, and other sectors has been stated here, and that is absolutely right. Anybody who has been in an emergency department, community settings or nursing homes knows the importance of migrant workers who are part of our society and who have been working and looking after our loved ones and our elderly, and the Minister of State rightly mentioned that in his contribution. When one is out canvassing at doors, and I come across this so often, one meets a Filipino or somebody who is a carer for a loved one in that house and is a valued part of that household in terms of what he or she does.

With regard to the policy for the last number of years and having had direct experience of this in my own constituency, the processes were in place heretofore and possibly are still here to a degree with regard to having private operators and having rumours out there in relation to what might happen and who might come. For example, in 2019, my experience was that there was no information about whether a premises was going to be used, who was coming, in what numbers and where they were from. That has changed to a degree latterly over the last number of years whereby the then Department of integration would have provided information on the numbers that were coming. For example, it would inform a local community that agreement was reached to accommodate 70, as it were, single men or 70 or 80 women. We have seen that in different parts of my constituency. Both of those situations have caused trouble, and I will be blunt about it, particularly if there were plans to accommodate 70 single men in a rural community. There was, understandably, uproar in relation to that. Therefore, the change to State-owned centres is right. Of course, that depends where the State-owned centres are going to be. There is no easy answer for those. The State has bought Citywest. I know there is opposition there locally. Wherever the State chooses to locate these centres, I am sure there will be opposition. That is understandable because we have seen it in certain parts of the country where there are issues. This is not an easy topic. It is not an easy topic even where the plan is to change to State-owned, but it is the right approach to have dedicated centres rather than the present system that has operated over the last two years. I would agree with the need for rules. Rules are important, and we must have a firm but fair system whereby people are processed quickly and where the rule of law is accepted and people who do not qualify and who fail in their application follow the rigours of deportation and the law.