Joe Conway (Independent)

Before I came into the Seanad in January, for the previous 20 years I had the privilege of going around primary school classrooms for the 20 years from 2005 to 2025. It is a matter of great pride in being able to report the widespread work that is being done by primary teachers in integrating the new arrivals into Ireland and the tremendous work that is being done in social, personal and health education, but most notably in the matter of how the new Irish are being integrated and facilitated in learning Gaeilge. It is very uplifting to go into a classroom and see children, black or brown or wherever their origins are from or their antecedents, and hear them joining in on the Gaeilge lesson with as much verve as the native Irish. That sort of transfers also into community groups and sports groups. I might instance the success of a young man called Josh Zeljkovic who won an all-Ireland minor hurling medal with Waterford this year. The Minister of State would know from the name Zeljkovic that his antecedents do not come from Ballygunner or Fourmilewater or other hurling strongholds. It is just wonderful to see both in education and sporting and community life how various people and teachers and people of a positive outlook and social mien are welcoming the new Irish into this country and making them an integral part of the current life and future life of the country.

Before I go on to the downside, I just want to say that in my dealings with the Department of justice on immigration matters, although there have not been many, there is a new breath of life in the way both the Minister for justice and his Minister of State are dealing with the responsiveness to us public representatives, and I commend that. There are two items I have a concern about, and the Minister of State might address these for me. One relates to a gentleman called Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, otherwise known as Tommy Robinson, who was the leading light, shall we say, in the big protest in Trafalgar Square two weekends ago where 150,000 people were addressed by this chap. Although he was born in Luton in Bedfordshire, it is reliably reported that he holds an Irish passport. However, there have been concerns arising from his possession of the Irish passport because it is alleged that he provided false information on his immigration documents, and he also factually has a string of criminal convictions. What is the status of the investigation into the withdrawal of the passport of that person?

Second, in relation to the 499 km of Border we have between Carlingford Lough and Lough Foyle and the 270 roads the Border crosses, can the Minister of State tell us how much they have increased the Garda National Immigration Bureau, GNIB, and the Garda workforce on the Border to police and monitor and intercept the flow of immigration that is coming from the UK across our Border into the Republic of Ireland? Border Force will tell us that the traffic is negligible in the other direction, but there is a lot of activity coming South. What is the increase in the GNIB and the Garda resources to that problem? What is the status of the passport question over Yaxley-Lennon?