Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)

I sometimes think I am living in a parallel universe, sitting here listening to people make statements about immigration that some of us would have been lambasted for making a year ago. It is interesting to see Government representatives and others catch up with what the rest of us have been talking about for the last few years. We have the worst housing shortage in living memory yet we are seeing net migration of 60,000. That is equivalent to the population of Monaghan. Last year, the Government promised up to 40,000 new homes yet the CSO has confirmed that it delivered only 30,000. We see planning permission overturned for housing estates due to population targets and at the same time, hotels are quietly contracted for emergency accommodation, which has led to some devastating effects on our tourism industry. We need to look at the number of people coming into the country legally as well as illegally. The number of work visas issued has quadrupled, from around 10,000 a year ago to nearly 40,000. We do not have the capacity to keep up with the number of work visas being issued. Of course people are frustrated when planning applications for estates are overturned while a wealthy few are profiting off IPAS centres that are exempt from planning laws. The loopholes that allow IPAS accommodation providers to bypass the planning process must be closed immediately.

Back in July, the Government said that 2,000 people currently in migrant accommodation, who have been granted asylum and are permitted to stay in Ireland, are to be effectively evicted from the IPAS accommodation they are in and thrown in the direction of county councils and emergency homelessness accommodation. The system is not able for that. We are saying clearly that this plan must be reversed. I want clarity today on whether the Government is proceeding with this. We cannot put 2,000 refugees on top of our homelessness system, which does not appear to have any spare beds the moment. It is a stupid and inhumane plan that is going to make migrants homeless. It is going to make locals less likely to get an emergency bed. It is going to dramatically increase the monthly homelessness figures and cause huge tension on the ground and competition for resources. What is the point or logic in moving migrants from IPAS hotels into a local authority homelessness hotel? It seems the Government just wants to pass this problem to the local authority rather than deal with it. We cannot magic up services and housing. I cannot understand why that would be in any way controversial to discuss. If we want a functional immigration system, then we need to acknowledge the lack of capacity. The Government's current system amounts to stretching a single blanket across ten people and in the end someone is left cold.