Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister and thank him for the great work he is doing here and the humane approach and wisdom he brings to it.

I welcome to the Gallery a wonderful exemplar of the best of immigration and the wonder of diversity in our country, namely, Councillor Yemi Adenuga. She is a guest of my colleague Senator Linda Nelson Murray.

I utterly condemn the recent racial attacks, particularly those that were notably against members of the Indian community. No matter who they are against, they must be condemned unequivocally.

It merits saying again that from the end of the 18th century right through the 19th century, accelerated by the Famine, Irish people sought international protection all over the world and received it. We should be aware of that as we address this question.

One in five migrants to the country is an economic migrant. We have 12,500 economic migrants, or people who have come here to work, working in the health system in 2025. Fifty-four percent of our nurses trained abroad. There are 6,000 migrants in IT and 3,500 in agriculture. There are 83,000 in the hospitality sector. There are no accurate figures for engineering and construction but the numbers are very high. We need these economic migrants and our demographic structures in Ireland will make them increasingly necessary. That is a backdrop that needs to be kept in context.

Nobody sane or reasonably mentally well would question the correctness of bringing in Ukrainians under the temporary protection scheme. To date, my colleague Senator Ahearn, who has a personal interest and expertise in Ukraine, tells me that about 120,000 have come in. Currently, there are about 80,000 here. They are here as temporary protection holders. They have and will bring a lot to our country. Many will go back. Those who stay will contribute immensely. The scheme is one that nobody would question.

International protection applicants are very small in number. There are many misnomers in this regard. We had 13,643 in 2022, we had 13,271 in 2023, we had 18,554 in 2024 and, interestingly and as a consequence of several initiatives, we have had 9,580 in 2025. Therefore, let us be realistic. The number is very minuscule in the overall context of migration to our shores. Let us not be crazy in our analysis of this. People need to know what I am saying. Deportation order numbers rose from 857 in 2023 to 2,403 in 2024. I would like the Minister of State to consider a better education campaign in the media. I ask him to look at his budget for this. This campaign would be to let the people know the difference. I meet any number of people in shops, hairdressing salons and everywhere who talk to me with the best of human intent but with complete ignorance of the situation of the distinction with economic migrants. Could we have a public education campaign on this issue, more than is being done? I also welcome the movement to the use of State lands and State housing because we need our hotels back open. Will the Minister of State elaborate on where we are at with that and how he projects that will go on into the future. On that basis I will leave it.