Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)

The Minister of State is very welcome to the Chamber. I acknowledge the work of the Minister of State, the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, and the former Minister, Deputy McEntee.When my colleagues and I wrote this motion, we wondered how it would be received. It has generally been received respectfully. Of course, there are differences - that is understandable - but thankfully we have had in general a respectful debate on what is a very important and sometimes emotive topic.

There were 15 in my mother's family. Ten of them ended up in Boston and one in London. There were seven in my father's family. Two ended up in Perth, Australia, one in Los Angeles, one in New York and one in Manchester. The remainder of both families stayed at home. Our families moved to the four corners of the world, contributed and did as well as they could.

When my father was dying and being cared for, it was mainly by us, as children and family members, but we did have home help from the HSE. We had a wonderful African lady who came in. She was a worker and I know she has instilled the same value of work in her children. They are workers too.

My electoral career has had ups and downs and some of it related to the issue of migration, particularly in 2020 and 2024. One of the issues in 2020 was the lack of information, rumours about IPAS and who was coming and without the information being provided by the Department in relation to the numbers that were coming, their gender, how long they would be here and when they were coming. That has changed, and in general that change is positive, but the second election was swayed by the fact that the Department proposed that 70 single men would be coming to a very rural community. That caused tension and issues and Members know the history of that. These things are not easy.

Irish people are inherently generous and charitable. They have been known to donate to charities all over the world. With the history of famine in our country, they are inherently generous to other parts of the world, but they also do not like to be taken advantage of. We know that so many people come to this country to work. They play a valuable role in our health services, the caring professions, looking after our loved ones in nursing home settings and privately in homes. They are so important in the hospitality, construction and medtech sectors. We know that they have a legal route to come here. We have also looked after and cared for so many Ukrainians who left their country because of the invasion.

The majority of us have knocked on doors over recent years. One of the most common refrains I hear from people is that we are bringing too many people to the country. I ask them, "Who do you mean?" We are obviously bringing people who come here with visas and through legal routes. Many Ukrainians have come here following the temporary EU directive and are contributing. Refugees who have legitimate claims under international law have also come and then there are asylum seekers. I often say we are not bringing asylum seekers; they are coming here. We are legally obliged to deal with those asylum seekers and to process their claims. We are not bringing asylum seekers here. Many of them are coming via the United Kingdom. Despite the last Government in the UK having an official policy called stop the boats, it was not able to deal with the situation, and many of the people who are coming here are coming across the land border with the United Kingdom via Northern Ireland.

These things are not simple. They are quite difficult to deal with. However, at the end of the day we are dealing with human beings. As I said, we are a generous country, but we also need to ensure that we have a rules-based migration system. That is to be fair to people who live here but also fair to people who may be coming here so that they are not coming under false pretences and being misled by traffickers who are telling them that, if they get here, they will get X, Y or Z or that they will get a free house or whatever. It is important that there are rules, people know what they are and that they are fair but firm in relation to those who seek help in this country while also acknowledging the valuable role played by so many legitimate people who come here on visas to work in so many important loving and caring sectors in our communities.

I welcome that we tabled this motion and that we have generally had a very respectful debate on what can be an emotive and difficult issue, and one which, unfortunately, has been hijacked in certain instances. A soundbite on social media is not a mature debate on an important issue like this.