Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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When the debate on the motion was nearing an end the last day, Deputy Durkan was offering. I call him now.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on this issue. I have listened to the debate so far. I was intrigued by the tone it took at some stages, which was reminiscent of the debate that took place in the UK before Brexit. It would appear that we had decided we were going to assert ourselves in a way we had not known about before, we were going to go it alone and come up with our own solutions to issues and so on and so forth. All I can say in relation to all of this is that there are people in this House, from time to time, who say or imply that Europe is opposed to our interests. The obvious thing that comes to mind is that we are in Europe, live in Europe and are part of Europe. This is the way it is. If anyone wants to change that, they should come forward and say it. We could then be like our colleagues across the water. Before doing that, we should ask them about how much they have achieved in pursuing the line they have taken. They took their cue from Nigel Farage, who has an ongoing interest in these things. No doubt, he will come here at some stage to address those who are similarly inclined.

The opt-in and opt-out approach to this issue is not the best solution. Any situation that is in any way controversial, and this one has become controversial, where the option of agreeing or not agreeing is given, means we do not have any strength at all. It means those who want to opt in will do so when they want to and opt out when they want to, much to the annoyance of those around them. We should recognise that fact. Our best strength is in Europe and with Europe as a whole deciding to go in one direction. Deciding to go in two directions at the same time or taking the option of opting in or opting out, however, is a bad decision on the part of Europe and the member state countries. The Ceann Comhairle and I know, from having listened to similar debates over the years, that various constitutional amendments took place to ensure we stayed, in general, in step with our colleagues in Europe and, as a result of our input into particular situations, they and we would have the benefit of the strength, cohesiveness and power of the European Union at our backs. It is essential this continues.

Having listened to some of the debate during the European elections, there were many occasions when one would have had to wonder whether the intention was perhaps that we should sneak away out of the European Union and only accept parts of it that were acceptable to us. We joined the European Union to be part of it and to be part of its cohesiveness and strength. We have benefited greatly from it. There is no question about this fact. The investment we have had in this country and the power the economy has achieved in subsequent years is there for all to see. If there are those who say they will chip away at it little by little and bit by bit and we will remove what we do not like as we go along, that is not the way it works because in any union the strength is in its unanimity, obviously. At this time, I would far prefer to see a single line being taken, even on a controversial issue like immigration.

On this subject, it serves us well to say that the Irish people in general do not like to hear or see immigrants being treated badly. This is because of our own history and this is as it should be. Mind you, many of our ancestors were not treated all that well when they went outside the boundaries of this State. It serves us well to keep this experience in mind. As well as that, the issues now being seen to impact immigration include the closeness of one or other nation. Some countries closer to the danger area, for want of a better word, have decided they do not want any more people to come to live near them. Well, that is fine. I do not think it is possible for anybody to say to those around them that "Well, I am here now and I have decided I am going to be the only one here" or "I am going to regulate and dictate who lives nearby or comes to visit this country". I do not think that is the way it works or it should work that way. At the time of the prospectors in the United States, the fellow who first got to the location on a horse decided what was going to happen all around him. I do not think we should go back to that type of approach. I would like more time, but, needless to say, time catches up with us all.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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If a jumbo jet with 500 people were to crash in the Atlantic Ocean tonight and all the passengers drowned, it would make headline news tomorrow. Last year, the equivalent of six jumbo jets full of people drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to cross into Europe. These were desperate people getting on coffin ships. We had this happen in our own history. Some 186,000 people tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea last year. These were desperate people fleeing from war, conflict, climate change, famine and corruption. You name it, we can only dream in our worst nightmare of the situations these people are coming from.

I spent four years working in this area. There was not a day nor an hour when there was not an issue. Someone would be coming at me from one side saying I was not doing enough for these people and that I should be doing an awful lot more. Others came and said these people should not be here at all and we were taking in too many. These people arrive here, though, and we can see how desperate they are. So many risk their lives every year. The figures I referred to were just for last year, but the same has happened in other years. What are we to do when these people arrive here? We are obliged under international law to offer them accommodation and shelter and to process their applications if they look for asylum. This is what we are obliged to do. I must say that the officials I dealt with did their very best, but because of the state of our world, people keep on coming.

When I was working in this area, we were dealing with a conflict in Syria. We forget that country and do not mention it too much now, but there are still millions of people displaced from Syria. We talk about Gaza, where the situation is an abomination now. We talk about Ukraine as well. Very few people are talking about what is happening in Sudan and different parts of Africa. Again, if people were to take the time to read about, look at and study what is happening in those areas, they would see that it is absolutely awful and shocking. A couple of thousand people have come to this country, now, and we have people saying, "Ireland is full". If it were not for the impact of our Famine, we would probably at this stage have a population of 30 million or 40 million people living on this island if we had grown at the same rate as comparable countries in Europe. We have, instead, 5 million people. There is plenty of space here.

We also have people contacting us looking for workers. Employers ring me and all of us up because they want visas for workers to come here. I think the figure last year was 43,000. One of the frustrating issues for me at the time was the fact that Europe did not have a single policy or a single voice on migration. Now, this pact is giving it that. There is talk about a common asylum system, responsibility and solidarity, enhanced border management, efficient asylum procedures, return procedures, crisis preparedness and response, integration and support, tackling irregular migration, monitoring and enforcement and an implementation plan. This migration pact is about comprehensive reform.

There is a lot in it that is positive and that we can work together on. There are people saying that perhaps it will reduce the rights of migrants to seek asylum, while others are saying it will increase the numbers. On one side the Government is being criticised for not doing enough, while on the other it is being criticised for doing too much. I think this pact, which has taken a long time to negotiate across Europe, strikes a balance in the centre that we need. However, until Europe and the developed world start looking at the causes of migration and what is forcing desperate people to leave parts of Africa and Asia and deal with these factors, this is going to continue. This will be the case no matter what we do.

President Trump tried to build a wall, but it did not work. Britain had Brexit, but it did not work. Italy put in Prime Minister Meloni, but it did not work. They will keep on coming, as our people left here when they had to do so in the last century. They ended up in Canada, the United States, and in other places where they were not treated very well at the time and where an awful lot of them died. We have this in our DNA too. This pact is a way forward. Europe must work together as we cannot do it on our own. No country can deal with this issue on its own. We must work together on it. We must get clear thinking on it. We must keep a humanitarian approach because we are dealing with desperate people.

One of the ironies is that people sometimes say we cannot bring people here because we cannot treat them well. Very often the people who come here come from places we could only think about in our worst nightmares, and even then it could not happen. We could not imagine how awful things are. Some people have seen their whole family butchered and killed and they have escaped with their lives, with just the clothes on their back. This is complex. I could probably talk about it at length. Many of us could go on and on about it. This is a way forward. I support the pact. I also support the Minister in her work on it.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I join with colleagues who earlier expressed their condolences on the passing of Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh and Tommie Gorman. It is a very sad day for Ireland to see two such wonderful people pass away, people who have made such an enormous contribution to society in so many different ways.

I support the EU migration and asylum pact and will vote for it tomorrow. In the short time available I want to make a few points. The first is to pick up on what Deputy Stanton said. People involved in this debate underestimate the extent to which it is push factors that cause people to migrate in a way that is irregular or, in some cases, illegal. We should not underestimate that. We see, for example, that the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union to take control of its borders. It decided to introduce as official policy a hostile environment for migration. It made it its official policy to reduce both legal and illegal immigration. What do we see happening so far in the UK this year? Record numbers of people are arriving in small boats from continental Europe to the United Kingdom. Why is that happening? Record numbers of asylum seekers are crossing the Mediterranean into Italy, despite the fact that a radical right government was elected there. Despite the fact that we here in Ireland can no longer provide accommodation for asylum seekers – approximately 2,000 are now unaccommodated, welfare payments have been cut back and the regime is being quite frankly tightened and hardened - we see record numbers arriving as well. It is not because Ireland, Britain, Europe or any country is some sort of soft touch. It is not the case that governments are bringing people into our countries. They are being pushed out by war, famine, poverty, oppression and discrimination because their group in society has been on the wrong side of the government or not on the winning side in a war. We must appreciate that more fully.

Of course the majority of them are men travelling on their own. These are people who must risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean or perhaps the Sahara. Of course it is going to be the case that most of them are men. They are the ones who are sent by their families, who save up the money to allow them to make the journey. In many cases they have families back home - wives, children and elderly relatives - that they would like to be able to follow them in a few years' time, after they have gained status, got a job and made some money. We should know from our own experience, from Irish men going to Scotland as labourers and from Irish people crossing the Atlantic to live in America, that it was a very similar process that we followed.

The EU migration pact itself allows us to do some of the things that we need to do to better secure the outer borders of the European Union. If people cannot enter Europe illegally or irregularly, it is going to be much harder for them to come here. That is a good thing. It will allow the 27 states to work together to combat people trafficking and those terrible criminal gangs that take money off people to put them in coffin ships and do not care whether they get to Europe or not as long as they get their money. It also allows us to work better on returns. People often ask me when somebody's asylum application has failed – most do fail – why they do not get sent home, as if it was that easy, as if they could be dropped out of an aeroplane. We cannot send people home who do not have documents. They need to get a passport from the country we are going to send them to. We cannot send them home unless that country has a returns agreement with Ireland and is willing to take them. We are in a much better position to negotiate returns agreements with countries that are relatively safe if we do that as a European Union of 27 member states. We have much more negotiating power than Ireland would have going to these countries on our own and asking if we could have a returns agreement with them. The European Union has leverage, big budgets and trade agreements. We have a much better chance of getting a return agreement with countries of origin as part of the European Union. Another reason is returns to other parts of Europe. We know that as many as one third of asylum seekers who arrive in Ireland have already applied for status or have some sort of status in another EU country. There is no requirement for those countries to take them back. We can ask but there is no requirement for that to be the case. The EU migration pact can help change that and make it easier for returns to happen.

There is also the possibility – it is something that must be considered – of the European Union coming to agreements with transit countries that people pass through on the way to Europe. They are not from there, but they pass through there on the way to Europe and they could process their applications there rather than here. That approach is very different from the Rwanda policy.

The final point I will make is that there are two big gaps in the EU's migration policy. The first is that we do not allow people to apply from where they are. Fewer people would come to Europe illegally if there was a means by which they could apply for asylum in their home countries, just like they apply for work permits or visas. Second, we need some form of green card system. We need more unskilled labour in the European Union. We do not just need people who have qualifications, we need people who have none, and there is not a proper system for those people to come to Europe legally.

Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome this opportunity. I have listened to everybody. I feel like we are chaining ourselves to the asylum and migration pact in the sense of taking an all-or-nothing approach. While there are good elements to it, I have some fears in regard to it. The current system is broken and we have not got it right. We cannot buy a bee in a box because we do not know what will be in the final version of the pact and what powers we will have in terms of our own decision-making. It is in our gift at the moment to get things right. We do not want to surrender that right to the European Union. I say that because, although there have been many benefits or pros from the European Union, there have also been cons. The cons include what we have seen happen in the Mediterranean, as has been mentioned. We also see the ongoing issues in Palestine and the track record of the European Union on that. We have seen it with our fishing industry, which has been decimated. We should have a €6 billion or €7 billion industry here. While Europe can be good for us, it is not always good for us. We must recognise that.

People who are genuinely fleeing an injustice, where they are stuck in conflicts, war or persecution, and are seeking asylum should be given support. The problem is that the supports and protection do not seem to be available here. Such people must be treated humanely, which is not the case at the moment. Another concern is when people are brought into a community but there has been a lack of communication, including with us as public representatives. We know that the current processing times are too long. Reactive measures that are being taken by the Government have resulted in hotels being taken over. Again, the response is reactive instead of proactive. It instils anger in communities and frustrates people. Then we can add in the misinformation that emerges. We have all seen that. I want to focus on the procedures that are not in place in terms of the current level of communication. As soon as people in the international protection system are mentioned, or whatever you want to call them, as coming into a community to stay in a hotel or whatever accommodation, the myth goes out that they are all young men of an age for military service.

This is not true. The Department needs an awful lot more stringent, robust and rapid information going out and we know of many instances in this regard.

The slogan that Ireland is full has been referenced and I want to dispel it. We have had a crisis in health. We have a crisis in housing, which we had well before we had migration into this country. This is not the fault of those seeking asylum here. It is the ongoing fault of the inaction of the Government to plan properly over the years.

I do not think anybody mentioned the asylum and migration management regulation or strengthening Eurodac. These are things we can do. They are there to ensure there is more information on those who enter the country and to establish who deals with the vetting, who is tackling human trafficking and who is returning asylum seekers where it is appropriate.

Like everything there are pros and cons. I am very fearful about the fact we are signing off on something that will tie the Government, the next Government and the Government after that into something that may not work. To be realistic, while everybody has a sympathetic ear we have to get our own books in order first so we can provide what people are looking for. We want something that is efficient and clear but if people break the rules they have to be enforced. I would prefer to reserve the right to our own decision-making capacity in terms of the Government and not dilute it to the European Union as such. For this reason I cannot support the motion.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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What we are debating today is whether Ireland should opt in fully and wholesale to the EU migration pact. Sinn Féin's position is crystal clear and it is that we should not. It is not in Ireland's interest. Ireland and Europe have seen a significant increase in migration rates for a number of years. In 2019 the number of people applying for international protection in the State was less than 5,000. Last year the number was more than 13,000, almost tripling it in the space of four years. By the end of last month 107,000 PPS numbers had been issued to Ukrainian beneficiaries of temporary protection.

How migration is managed or mismanaged impacts almost every facet of our economy and society, including the provisions of our public services, our social cohesion and the demands on our housing system. This year the number of asylum applications is likely to be in the region of 25,000. That as a State we would essentially give up on our ability to take key decisions to respond to this is the wrong call for Ireland. Why would we opt into an EU pact that, should our asylum system become overwhelmed, would not allow us to depart from ordinary procedures regarding supports and accommodation without getting approval from the EU? It is a loss of sovereignty restricting the State's ability to act and respond quickly.

Why would we pursue a wholesale adoption of this pact, which would open us up to the possibility of infringement proceedings and fines for issues that can and should be addressed at home nationally? Why, as a small and neutral country, should we allow the European Union to determine from which conflicts and countries we should take programme refugees? These are decisions that we can and should address here nationally. We can create and manage a fair, efficient and enforced migration system without a blanket and indiscriminate opt-in to this EU pact. Our asylum system and migration system are in crisis. This fact is no better illustrated than by the spectre of tents pitched across the city or the sight of a poor and vulnerable woman taking a bucket of water from the River Liffey for her personal use at her tent.

As I have said, in the region of 25,000 asylum applications are expected this year. If last year's trend continues then 62% of them will have their asylum applications refused by the international protection office. This is more than 15,000 refusals and determinations that people are not entitled to refuge here in the State. Those who are refused in the past, as will those who will be refused in future, wait months and even years to be processed or notified of the refusal and then there are genuine questions as to whether the decisions will ever be enforced. On the other hand, vulnerable people fleeing war and persecution, who are entitled to protection here, face unacceptable conditions in the State.

I believe the Irish people are compassionate. Our values are those of decency and fairness and this is what people want to see. The reality is decent and compassionate people are questioning the fairness of the system operating at present. Is it fair that individuals who are only a few euro above the medical card threshold are denied it and the entitlements it provides, while certain temporary protection beneficiaries gain automatic entitlement to it regardless of their income and their employment status? These differences, which are being made, are undermining social cohesion.

Where housing and accommodation are in such short supply the Government has created a system whereby some temporary protection applicants have greater access to private rental accommodation, with landlords getting €800 tax free from the State by renting out accommodation to beneficiaries of temporary protection, providing more money to them than they would get if they rented out in the private market in many areas throughout the State. It has built in an incentive for landlords to accept one over the other when the housing needs of both are acute.

With almost 4,000 additional rental homes being provided to beneficiaries of temporary protection so far this year, an additional 1,000 each month, we can see why more and more people question the fairness of this. It is provided regardless of income and employment status. How can this do anything other than create competition, resentment and inequality where an already dysfunctional rental market exists?

These are only hairline fractures in the Government's asylum and migration policy. The deeper cracks in the system are leading to inhumane conditions for the vulnerable and creating discord in our communities. Instead of addressing these failings and creating an immigration system that is fair, efficient and enforced, we now have the prospect of the Government taking a leap into the dark with a wholesale opt-in to this migration pact. There are only two elements of the pact that are in Ireland's interest to adopt. These are returning those who seek to make an asylum application here to the first country where they sought international protection in the solidarity clause and sharing the fingerprint database.

The Minister wishes to portray this pact as the solution to our problems when, in fact, we can do much of what it provides right here and right now. This is the wrong decision. It is an all-or-nothing approach that will restrict our ability to determine our own migration rules, binding us to regulations that will undermine our sovereignty and lead to bad outcomes. It should be for an Irish Government to decide on the key pillars of our migration system. Signing into this migration pact wholesale and outsourcing our immigration policy to the EU is not the solution. It is not in Ireland's interest and it should be rejected in the Dáil.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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I will not support the pact. It writes a broken system into law. It disregards the humanity of people fleeing war and persecution. It weakens our humanity by treating people who need help with detention and punishment. It reinforces the false idea we have a refugee crisis and not a crisis in how we run our economies, societies and international system.

We do not have refugee crisis. We have a crisis in how we run and fund our State. This crisis is seen in housing, the rental sector, homelessness, healthcare, mental health services and education. The crisis has not developed since 2022 but has been decades in the making. People fleeing war and persecution are not a crisis. The failure of our State to provide basic functioning services is a crisis and we are all caught up in it.

The reason for the crisis is simple but it is complicated in many ways. Successive Governments have built an economy that benefits the very wealthy and big business at the expense of a functioning state for the majority of people. We refuse to tax wealth at a rate that could provide a fully functioning State. Ireland sits 27th in Europe for employers' contributions to social insurance and employers' PRSI. It is 44% of the European average. We have one of the lowest corporation taxes. Our taxes on capital are less than half those of Germany and the UK and less than one third of those of France. The result of this is that our State spending measured as a percentage of GDP is 32% less than the next lowest EU country and 57% less than the EU average.

Successive Governments in Ireland have provided low taxes for the wealthy, failing the services for everyone else. This is what direct provision was and is about. We built a system that was not fit for purpose, just like in housing, health and education, because successive Governments will not tax the wealthy like a normal EU country and therefore cannot fund a functioning service.

The Irish Refugee Council has called direct provision "State sanctioned child poverty" and "a chapter in Ireland's long and dark history of institutional living". This system was in place when the number of people seeking international protection began to rise in 2022. The foundations were completely rotten. Now we find out that citizens in direct provision are being pushed out to nothing. They have been given the date of 5 July to leave direct provision, but to go where? This is just more immiseration for people fleeing war and persecution without any additional funding or services for communities already dealing with failing public services.

The more than 2,000 IPAS applicants currently living on our streets is the result of sticking with policies the Government was told did not work. This pact has the same problem. The current EU policy is not working. I cannot vote for a new policy built on an already failing system. Research for the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, ECRE, showed that this will provide for worse quality processing for applicants, less right to appeal, a heavy reliance on detention and lower standards of care and that it is a failure to address the issues that cause onward movement and has so many holes and derogations in it that there are real questions on how it can function properly. To quote the ECRE:

the Commission has gone ahead with these ideas even [though] they significantly undermine EU law as a whole and vastly complicate the Commission's own job of monitoring compliance and defending the Treaties.

The pact does not address the issues facing border countries, save people from drowning in the Mediterranean, address the living conditions of refugees or asylum seekers in Europe or address the declining standards of living across an EU that since 2008 has stood over bank guarantees, extortionate debt deals, government spending limits and austerity. Most important, it does not address the problems that make people leave their homes and come to Europe, such as the wars EU countries participate in and fund in the global south, our protectionist trade deals, extortionate debt or our contribution to the climate crisis. This is not a simpler or better process. It is just a less safe one and will ultimately see more people dead in the Mediterranean and on Europe's borders because it does not address the real causes of this issue. Europe should not repeat its mistakes and build a policy on top of a system that has already failed. We need a humane policy that is state-led and properly funded and respects the needs of people fleeing war and persecution and the need for European countries, including this country, to provide a decent standard of life for everyone who lives in them.

Will people stop calling human beings "returns"? It is like returning an empty bottle to a machine. We are talking about people who are declined status in Ireland and then asking they be deported. They are not returns.

I will not be supporting this pact.

Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I join in the tributes expressed across the House on the passing of two Irish legends of broadcasting. The wonderful Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh was the sound of the GAA, the sound of Sunday and for generations of fans he was an exceptionally descriptive broadcaster and was also generous with his time, particularly in promoting the Irish language, his native tongue. I offer my condolences to his wife Helena, their extensive family and wide circle of friends. We also learned today of the passing of Tommie Gorman, who played a significant role in the peace process by reporting on the turbulent times in the North. He always delivered his segments with honesty and clarity and was a trusted journalist down through the years. I offer my condolences to Tommie’s family, Ceara, Moya and Joe, and to his wider family and friends. I also extend my sympathies to the RTÉ colleagues of both Mícheál and Tommie.

I welcome the opportunity to examine the proposed EU asylum and migration pact. First, I thank everyone who contacted with me with feedback on this issue. It is fair to say the matter has generated significant public interest. I welcome the time that has been allocated to allow a full debate and to ensure all TDs have the opportunity to have their say on behalf of their constituents.

As has been mentioned by many contributors, the EU asylum and migration pact was proposed by EU states as a response to the pressure of irregular migration. At the heart of the pact is the acknowledgement that no single state can successfully deal with the challenges on its own. Only through working together at EU level can we hope to manage the challenges of irregular migration. Many MEPs on the left in the European Parliament opposed the pact on the basis they felt the provisions were too strict. Indeed they felt arrangements should be more relaxed. I strongly disagree with this sentiment. On the other hand, other MEPs are opposed to the pact, favouring a go-it-alone policy for individual states. Again I disagree, as this is not a viable or sustainable policy approach.

Over the past two years we have seen a very significant increase in the number of people applying for asylum in Ireland. This has put significant strain on the State and on communities across Ireland. Elements of the existing arrangements, practices and laws surrounding people seeking asylum are not satisfactory. Existing laws need to be enforced and where necessary updated. The pact will ensure laws are updated. We have seen the challenges created by people destroying documentation when landing in the State and presenting without documentation. Authorities have moved to deal with this by actively enforcing section 11 of the Immigration Act 2004. Fianna Fáil has called for legislation to be updated to make the destruction of documentation a stand-alone criminal office. We also want to see fines significantly increased for airlines and ferry companies that fail to comply with their obligations under section 2 of the Immigration Act 2003 to ensure that each person they carry into the country has a valid passport or other equivalent document. We also want to see greater co-operation with authorities in Northern Ireland concerning people arriving from the UK, which as we have seen has become a significant channel of entry. Ultimately, the processing times for people seeking asylum need to be dramatically reduced and when someone is found to have an unsuccessful claim they must leave the State or be deported. In addition, people who commit a crime in Ireland should be deported immediately, once the criminal proceedings have concluded.

As regards the EU asylum and migration Pact, I am conscious that Ireland cannot deal with the impact of immigration alone and that the pact is an attempt to deal with the issue on an EU-wide basis. However, I have concerns about elements of the pact. That said, many aspects are welcome, such as the pact’s enhanced screening and security measures which will reduce irregular secondary movements of asylum seekers. This provision is particularly important for Ireland, as the pact will involve the end of the Dublin Convention which could leave Ireland open to having to deal with secondary movements if we remain outside the pact. The pact would also see the expansion of the Eurodac database, used to check migrants’ fingerprints, which would enable even more information to be shared between countries. The elements to strengthen EU borders are also welcome, as are agreements with Tunisia, Mauritania and Egypt to prevent irregular deportations happening in the first place. The provisions of the pact will ensure the EU borders will be screened. Screening includes identity and security checks. The information collected at screening, including fingerprints, will be uploaded and stored on the EU Eurodac database, available to all states in the pact. It is critical that Ireland have access to the database and that information.

Second, the pact requires that applications are processed within six months, with an accelerated procedure of three months available where the person is deemed a security risk. The efficient processing of applications is critical. As we know, appeals against deportation frequently cite delays in processing applications. The principle at the heart of the EU migration and asylum pact is to establish a more coherent approach across the EU to migration, asylum, immigration, integration and border management, one fit for the 21st century. While elements of the pact are not perfect, it is not sustainable for Ireland to attempt to go it alone. Reference was made earlier to Brexit. Look what has happened in the UK. It is only through working together as EU member states that we can deal with the challenges of irregular migration. On this basis I will be supporting the pact.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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There must be an election looming again as Sinn Féin has done another U-turn. It now states it no longer wants open borders. It now wants to look at things differently.

I am working with many nationalities in this country and always have done so. It is harder now to get into the country with paperwork than it is without paperwork in certain cases. I refer to people who come with paperwork and want to work here. How many letters has the Minister's office received from me and my colleagues regarding truck drivers who have been working here for the past year and a half but are awaiting permits and paperwork?

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They have been paying tax in the country but there is a box-ticking exercise whereby they have to have the paperwork done in a certain way, otherwise they cannot work here. For bus drivers, the situation is the same. People have come here from other countries. They are willing to work but they are not allowed to do so. It is scandalous.

Three weeks ago, our office dealt with a person on holidays whose passport was robbed. It took three days going from different parts of the State, working with our office, to get this Irish person back into the country. They would not be allowed to board a plane unless they had the proper documentation. We had a copy of their passport, yet we had to go to two or three different parts of the police service before they could get on a plane to come here.

Irish people wear their hearts on their sleeves. When the Ukraine war began, they opened their houses. Many people from Ukraine have come here. Many settled here but many have returned home and were thankful for the hospitality we showed them. At the moment, people here who have worked all their lives are trying to get into the housing market but are priced out of it because of the lack of supply. We can provide massive accommodation for people coming here for asylum when people working in this country cannot put a roof over their heads. I have ten in my house, namely my wife, my four children, my two grandchildren and two of my sons' partners. I am a building contractor, and they cannot afford to build because of the inflation in building costs. Wages do not now cover inflation. Across the board, if you do not have supply, everything goes up. How many farmers are leaving the dairy industry this year? Ask the marts how many cows are on the marts system and booked in already this year. They are being pushed out of farming yet we have a bigger population and need more milk and dairy products. It is all being imported from Europe and other countries that do not have the same criteria we have to make sure foods are safe. Regulation after regulation is putting the people who put food on our tables out of business, yet the population and the dependency of the people on them are increasing. The Government is tying them up in regulation.

People have said Ireland is full. People who have moved here from countries around the world are telling me it is full because they cannot get accommodation, and they are here to work. Does that not send a message to people? If they do get accommodation, the cost of it is out of control as a result of the situation with supply and demand. That is a failure of this and previous governments for not investing in infrastructure to accommodate more people and build more houses. It could have invested in sewerage, water, infrastructure and schools to deal with extra people. No, it is a narrow vision and all the funding is put in one place only. That is what is wrong with this country. The Government has failed to build the proper infrastructure to make sure we can accommodate whatever comes down the line. It has failed farmers and businesspeople with the over-regulation and overtaxing that have caused the massive inflation which will determine the future of our children.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I thank all of those who spoke. Including this week, last week and in the Seanad, there have been more than 12.5 hours of debate and questions on the migration pact, as well as numerous debates in this House prior to that and questions at the Oireachtas committee. I have listened to and been part of all those debates and responded to questions any time I have been asked. When we are talking about this, as many colleagues have said, we are talking about people and about putting structures and systems in place that are and should be there to protect some of the most vulnerable people across the globe, while making sure we are firm and fair with people who come here for other reasons and clear that there are legal pathways for work but, most importantly, for those who genuinely need our help and protection, that we are able to provide it for them.

As many colleagues stated, we live in an unsettled world. It is a scary place for many people. We see wars happening across the globe. In Europe, the Middle East and many parts of Africa, people are fleeing war, prosecution, starvation, climate catastrophe and discrimination. We have an obligation to protect them and provide shelter and safety. It is something we as a country have always stood up to and not something we will shy away from. Nobody here, I hope, is suggesting we should walk away from the Geneva Convention, which was put in place after the Second World War to make sure that every country would offer safe haven and a safe space to people who needed them.

We cannot do this on our own because it is a global challenge. There are millions of people on the move seeking a better life, shelter and safety. We need to work with colleagues across Europe, and that is exactly what we have been doing. That is not something that has just appeared; it is something that we have worked on for many years. We have worked to develop it, enhance it and set out the different measures and structures we are debating today in the context of the pact. It is not being forced on us, and I push back against any suggestion this is taking away our sovereignty or being forced on us. The Irish people voted clearly when they supported the Lisbon treaty that when it came to matters of security or migration, we could opt in to any measures at European level. We are choosing to opt in to measures that we believe as a Government, having negotiated them, will be beneficial for the country and for those who need our protection and support.

I respectfully ask the many colleagues here and in the Seanad who have said we should go it alone and not joint this pact, how? How do we do this ourselves when there are millions of people on the move and this is a global challenge? We are talking about people. Nobody has presented any options. Nobody has said how we do this on our own. Every Sinn Féin Deputy has repeated the same thing: we need a common sense approach, a common decency approach and a fair, efficient and enforced system. That is exactly what we are talking about with the pact. That is what I have been doing for the past number of years, investing in our system.

The first one will lead to faster processing and common procedures across the EU. What does that mean? That means for somebody coming from a country with an approval rate of less than 20%, in other words, a safe country, that everybody would apply the same rules on the same timeline. It would be shorter, quicker and more efficient, meaning that people who genuinely need protection get it quickly and that the same rule applies across the EU. If they are not entitled to it, they get the negative decision just as quickly, making it easier to enforce our rules and remove people from the country. That is what the pact is proposing: common asylum procedures. It also means if somebody has protection in another country, we can return them to that country more efficiently, something Deputies and Senators have been calling for. The pact means we have better access to more information on the people coming here, so we know who they are and have a better idea of whether they pose a risk, although we have to push back on untruths and the misinformation that these people are coming here to create havoc. They are coming here because they want a better life and safety, but it is important that we know who is here and share that information with our colleagues. It also proposes that we have minimum standards in order that no matter which country a person arrives in, there will be: minimum reception conditions, including for accommodation; that we have similar rules and criteria when agreeing international protection; and that we have solidarity.

Sinn Féin proposes a pick-and-mix solution. We will get information from our European colleagues and sent people back to other European countries but we will not show any solidarity to them in response. We know there are countries under immense pressure because of the number of people travelling to mainland Europe.

We need to show that solidarity because we know that we may need that in return in years to come. Also, we can access funding. We can make sure that in investing in our systems, by opting into these measures, we can we access funding to improve the structures in the systems that we already have. We also would agree to safe and legal pathways for people to resettle here. I ask every Deputy and Senator who said that he or she does not support it or agree with it, what does he or she not agree with in everything that I have outlined or what is not beneficial, no only for Ireland but for other countries?

I accept that concerns have been raised in respect of human rights and making sure that people are protected. All I can say is that at the very beginning of and during this entire negotiation, everything that has been discussed and developed has taken into account the fundamental rights of protection applicants. In addition, provision is made for the specific needs of vulnerable protection applicants, particularly children. We make sure through the pact that at the very early stages but throughout the various different processes, people will have access to legal counselling. They are not currently entitled to this but it is a measure contained in the pact. There are also safeguards for vulnerable people in the building blocks of the common implementation plan, which was only published last week and which I spoke to my European colleagues about in the company of Commissioner Ylva Johansson. All of this is built with human rights at its heart, making sure that the people who genuinely need our protection will get it and that in the case of people who do not, we are firm and fair and that we create other legal pathways for people to come here.

It is not that this work is only starting either. There has been major investment. Some €34 million was secured last year by me and my Department to invest in the international protection system. We have doubled the number of staff. It has meant that we have tripled the output in terms of the number of cases being heard. We have seen a 40% reduction in the number of people coming through our ports and airports where they have either got rid of their documents or are on false documents, because of the work that I have been doing working with the airports, with the airlines, with the liaison officers and with the Garda. I have introduced an accelerated procedure which means that people coming from particular safe countries are getting their decisions much more quickly. Since that has been introduced, we have seen a massive reduction in the number of people coming from these countries. I am not waiting for the pact. The pact is there, and we will sign up to it with the agreement of the House. We will continue with this work. Again, what is in the pact that people disagree with in the context of what I have just outlined? These are all of the things that people have been calling for, that they want. We are not handing over sovereignty. We are choosing to do this because this is the only way that we can respond to what is a global challenge.

Some Deputies have consistently repeated mistruths about Ireland being forced to take tens of thousands of people, about being forced to pay fines of hundreds of millions of euro or about the notion that we could pull away from obligations in respect of supporting and protecting international protection applicants. This is not true. Given the sensitivity of what we are discussing, the fact that we are talking about people's lives and the fact that there is outright racism and divisiveness in our society because of this, we have a real opportunity. There is an obligation on us to make sure that we speak the truth when we are talking about the facts.

Many Deputies raised the fact that we have people coming from the UK as well. It is not one or the other. It is clear to the EU - this was outlined in the withdrawal agreement - that we have a special relationship. We have a special agreement, especially in the context of the common travel area. The pact does not in any way impinge on that. We have arrangements with the UK that will remain in place. Where they need to be amended, they can be. I point to the fact that migratory flow challenges change and that we respond and deal with them.

Some of the other issues were raised. As to what is stopping us from upgrading our system now, the answer is nothing. We are doing all this now. As to why we should opt in if other countries are not, other than Denmark, every other country is bound by this. Denmark can opt out of the Schengen measures but it is not choosing to do that at all. We are choosing to do this because we want to work with our partners in respect of what is a global challenge.

There were also questions about legal pathways. First and foremost, inward migration has always been good for this country. To try and separate the two - the suggestion that people who are coming as international protection applicants do not have something to contribute, do not have skills, expertise and knowledge and do not want to work as well - is simply not correct. We need to look at it as a whole. There are separate pathways by which people can come but inward migration as a whole will continue to be positive for this country.

Last week, I had the honour of speaking at six different citizenship ceremonies over two days. There were also two ceremonies the week before. Over 10,000 new Irish citizens from 150 different countries were involved. There were many people who came here on visas - many came to work - but there were also many people there who were international protection applicants who came here seeking a safe life, who now have built a life, who contribute to our society and who enrich it. That should always be to the fore of every discussion that we have when we talk about migration here.

This migration pact is positive for this country. It is also positive for those who genuinely need our protection and our help. It is a way of making sure that we have a structure and a system in place to respond to what is a global challenge. I ask Deputies to consider that when voting tomorrow.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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In accordance with Standing Order 80(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time tomorrow evening.