Hear, hear.

Sentiment score: 0.00

Yes.

Sentiment score: 0.40

Well said.

Sentiment score: 0.27

I have no issue with the amendment per se but, as Deputy Gannon said, I am concerned that we are going down the road of enshrining the use of private accommodation. We really need to get to a point where this is all publicly owned. We said this last week. All of the Opposition have argued that we should have the infrastructure for the provision of accommodation. If we go down the road of putting in amendments like this, it could be a get-out clause for the Government to not provide such infrastructure over a period of time. I know it is impossible to have it done to a certain point today, this week or this year because in the emergency scenario they had to go down certain roads. I have serious concerns about how these contracts were given. I have serious concerns about how the Department handled this issue. I know there have been changes in the Department. This was with the Department of children and then it came across to the Department of justice but the same sections came with it when it came into justice. I see no consistency in relation to how contracts were awarded. There were constant personnel changes in the Department. You could not talk to anybody. They never gave contact details on their emails and eventually they did not even give names as regards who you could deal with to find out what was going on. Some of the decision-making in relation to contracts was downright stupid. Giving a contract to the last hotel in Roscrea was absolutely stupid. Another €150,000 was then spent pretending that a second hotel that had been closed for a decade could be opened. This was a consequence of giving the contract to the owners of the Racket Hall Hotel in the first place. It was stupid. I am sorry. There are massive learnings in relation to this. I am concerned about enshrining this amendment in legislation because we are going to be dealing with this issue on a huge scale for many, many years. We need to have the proper State infrastructure in place. That should be our priority and that is where we should be going in relation to the provision of accommodation for those seeking asylum.

Sentiment score: 0.00

We will support this amendment. We in the Labour Party have some similar amendments later, some of which we may get to and the rest of which I guarantee we will not. The power of arrest and detention is something we have to be very careful about. How we prescribe this in law, making such definitions in the Bill in the catch-all manner in which we are doing so, brings me to the view that there is in a kind of underhand way profiling going on of those who can be detained as to why they are detained. As a country, if we are going to go down that route, we are really letting ourselves down because we are better than that. We should be treating people with respect. We obviously have to have a rules-based system for doing this, but we have to be very careful of the manner in which we bring in arrest and detention for individuals. While there are quite a number of amendments later detailing those who are trafficked, those who are vulnerable and a number of others, we need to start with this amendment because we may not get to the rest of them. That is why I will certainly support the amendment brought forward by my colleagues in the Social Democrats.

Sentiment score: 0.10

I move amendment No. 22: In page 32, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following: "(f) an applicant who is a presumed or identified victim of trafficking.". These are grouped amendments along similar lines across the legislation. Amendment No. 22 inserts "an applicant who is a presumed or identified victim of trafficking". This is obviously critically important if added to amendment No. 28 as it exempts presumed and identified victims of trafficking from any legal obligation to travel to a screening centre and from related criminal penalties. This corresponds with what I spoke about earlier about people who are vulnerable, the profiling of them and the manner in which they are being treated. The Labour Party does not see any obligation as to why, as a country, we are going to treat them in this way. The fact they will not be exempt from this legal obligation really is a stain on our country if it proceeds. In tandem with that, amendment No. 57 is to ensure that vulnerability assessments take account of whether a person may be a victim of trafficking. Currently in this section it is not clear. In fact, it needs to be made clear that vulnerability assessments take account of whether a person could have been the victim of trafficking. It needs to be stated in the legislation. Amendment No. 177, which is also grouped, is again along the same lines and exempts victims of trafficking from the accelerated procedure. Throughout the Bill, we are exempting those who are victims of trafficking from going through what, unfortunately, many others are being put though as a result of this legislation. Amendment No. 179 ensures that the victims of trafficking will have special procedural guarantees not to be subject to the accelerated procedure. Throughout all of these five amendments we are ensuring that those who are, unfortunately, victims of trafficking, which we can see from recent reports continues to be a huge issue in this country, are treated in a dignified, humane and compassionate way and are not dealt with in a manner that will be a stain on our society if we allow this legislation to go through. This tries to ensure that those victims who have had their lives turned upside down are treated well by this State.

Sentiment score: -0.11

Even though we have disagreed on quite a bit and despite the way he is guillotining this whole debate, the Minister has conducted himself in a fair way but his previous response smacked of a different tone. He let himself down. I do not know; maybe he was going back to his barrister days. It almost came across like a challenge to us. Who cares whether it is perfectly prescribed, as the Minister sees it, in this Bill. It goes beyond all of that. If he does not like our wording, he can table another amendment. He should bring it through the Seanad and then back to this House. However, if we, as a country, cannot have a system whereby within this legislation whereby there is a vulnerability assessment done and we cannot say that we know or believe that somebody is being trafficked, then we are letting everything we stand for as a country down. There are many professional organisations and people who can work with the State to help deal with this matter. It is not a debate about how we decide whether somebody is trafficked. That is being done every day of the week. That is not the debate. The debate is around whether the Minister has the will do it, whether it is by accepting these amendments or bringing forward his own. If the Minister stood up and said that he is willing to bring forward his own to deal with the matter, that would be something. When it comes to the issue, the fact is that we are not treating people who are in a very vulnerable state in the manner in which we should. We are not practising what we preach. As a State, we have not learned from past issues, and we are going very close to bone given what was apologised for today. The Minister needs to reflect on this because if he does not deal with this, there will be a situation whereby we will be looking back at this in the future and saying that we pointed out that it was wrong thing to do, but the Minister ploughed on with it and we now have all these situations. We do not want to end up in that scenario. By reply, he might say that he might deal with this. If he is not happy with my amendment or Deputy Gannon's, he might say that he is going to deal with it in the Seanad. Either way, the first amendment is mine and I will press it.

Sentiment score: 0.02

It is okay.

Sentiment score: 0.23