Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

We should be really clear about one thing when we talk about aligning ourselves further with the UK. The narrative in the UK at the moment is they want to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is a cornerstone of the Good Friday Agreement, so I would caution any move towards that in Ireland. It is deeply problematic that we are even touching on that.

Successive Governments have built a system where profit is being made off of human suffering. We can talk here and say that we want to move IPAS centres into the public space, but we have been asking for that for a very long time. It is obscene that so much is being spent on private providers to house people in inhumane conditions.

I want to lend my support to what Senator Clonan said. He put it beautifully about the positive impact that different types of migration have had specifically on Ireland. We are under a lot of pressure in Ireland, both when it comes to our immigration system, the IPAS system, housing, education, healthcare and childcare. They are very legitimate concerns of communities.It is the consequence of decades of neglect by successive governments. The concerns are not caused by vulnerable migrants fleeing war, famine and persecution but are the result of years of government decisions, including the refusal to build public housing at scale, the starving of our health and education systems and the hollowing out of community services, as well as the spiralling cost of living. The Government chooses to use lazy tactics, quite frankly, to distract from the fact that it has no intention of engaging with the communities that are suffering from years of disinvestment and neglect. People are struggling because the foundations of a fair society have been eroded, not because a family in need has arrived.

The Government's messaging on this over the last few weeks and months has been deeply problematic and unhelpful. It has promoted the notion of being overwhelmed and implied that the arrival of migrants is somehow the cause of long-standing Government failures. This motion continues to peddle that false narrative by saying that international protection applications have increased when we have actually seen a 43% drop this year. The language used shifts responsibility away from the Government's policy decisions across a plethora of different policy areas onto vulnerable people. What that has produced is a culture of confusion, fear, division and, at times, as we have seen, unimaginable violence. To be clear, people have a legal right to seek international protection in Ireland and, indeed, in any other European country. Is it now Government policy to support fortress Europe, to close the door and tell people fleeing war and persecution that there is no space for them here, no room at the inn and no safety for them in our country? We have travelled across the world, over generations, decades and centuries, seeking safety elsewhere when our country could not look after us. Our duty of care to those seeking safety is not an optional, nice little extra to have; it is our legal responsibility under international law. It is also basic decency and, from the memory of our own families who crossed borders, it is our obligation and responsibility.