I thank all Deputies for their contributions. I sit and listen and sometimes wonder if there is type of parallel world here. The purpose of the Bill brought forward by the Minister and me is to reform the IPAS system in order that we will have a firm, fair and effective system. I listened to Deputies one minute welcome that and the, particularly in the case of Sinn Féin, which is a bit ludicrous, stated for purely anti-EU ideological reasons that they could not agree to it. I remind Sinn Féin that we are part of the European Union. We are an integral part of it. We have the ability, as a sovereign state, to do what we need to do and we have the ability, working in conjunction with the European partners, to be able to develop and implement far more effective systems. That is the important part. If we pass the Bill, we will put in place something that most people in this House want, namely a system that will reduce the waiting time to 12 weeks. As a result, there will be a system that will be much fairer for applicants and for people already living in communities in Ireland because it will be less onerous due to the fact that people will be processed more quickly. It will answer the questions raised by the Deputy across the way about why and how we will get out of the situation which none of us want of having hotels around the country being used for IPAS. The Minister and I are quite clear. We want to move to a much more effective State-owned system which we believe is the best way to go. We are in government and do not have the luxury of standing up to complain. We recognise that we had a crisis whereby the numbers went so exponentially high that the State had to respond fast. The purpose of the response by the State was for humanitarian reasons, namely that we wanted to be able to offer people accommodation and shelter when they arrived so that we could process their claims. We now want to address the key issues around how we can do that in a much more effective way. We will not let ideology impact on us. I am going to respect what I believe are the genuinely held views of Irish people, regardless of whether they have the luxury of sitting in this seat or on a bar stool, when it comes to migration. The majority of Irish people want to see the type of system we are talking about, namely a firm, fair and effective rules-based system that enables people to come in and that grants them the right to remain in this country and contribute to it if they can make their case in that regard. If that does not happen, they will have to go. I do not think there is anything hard, wrong or in any way inappropriate about having that type of policy. That is what the Bill is about at heart. I echo what my colleague the Minister said. There are choices that have to be made and there are choices people will say are too harsh. I do not believe that. I believe it is a balance of fairness. What we are saying on family unification is really important. We are saying that if a person comes here and is granted the right to remain, not only does he or she have the right to look for family unification after a period of time, but must have the ability to sustain people coming into the country because we have to be reasonable in terms of what this country can actually do. We need to make sure there is a balance between people being able to reunify with their family and the costs involved in that to the State. It is not something we can ignore or pretend to wish away. It is a real choice and cost. We are determined to strike what we believe is the correct balance around fairness in that. We believe a two-year period in allowing for family reunification and someone being able to clearly show they can support and sustain people coming into the country to join them is not only fair to the person wishing to do so but to the Irish communities and the people who are living here. I thank all of the Deputies for their contributions. It has been very informative to listen to so many views in relation to this. I look forward to continuing to work with the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, on it.

Sentiment score: 0.14