I speak on this Bill on behalf of my colleague Deputy Kelly. There are a number of points that really need to be emphasised in this debate. One is that the Government is not doing enough to present the case for inward migration. It is a fact that this country is dependent on migration and many sectors of our economy are held together by migrant workers, including the care, hospitality and tourism sectors. I am not just talking about people on work visas or student visa; I refer also to asylum seekers. Contrary to what some people in certain quarters would have us believe, asylum seekers come to this country to seek sanctuary but also to work and contribute. The State makes it quite difficult for them to do so but they make a valid contribution and that contribution needs to be acknowledged more than it is. People who come here seeking asylum want a better life. They are fleeing war, famine and persecution. They come here for safety but they also want to be able to give their family a better life and to contribute to the communities in which we all live. I have no issue in principle with reforming our immigration framework. In fact, the Labour Party was the first party to put forward, in 2023, a comprehensive policy paper on immigration reform. Leaving aside the issues we have with what the Government is proposing in the Bill, which I will come to presently, I have a huge problem with the performative politics we have seen from the Minister, including tweeting about deportation flights. I have a huge problem with the performative politics from the Tánaiste in making inaccurate statements in relation to housing and immigration. I have a massive problem with the performative politics we have seen from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independent Members in government. There has been no attempt by the Government to present the positive case for migration and very little attempt to combat the misinformation and, in some cases, the outright lies from people who have sought to cause division within communities in recent years. There are real consequences to their actions. We are seeing migrant care workers having racist abuse roared at them on the street. Last year, in Tallaght, if my memory serves, an Indian who was barely in the country a week was beaten to a pulp and had his clothes ripped off him. We all want to see a more efficient immigration system in which decisions are made quickly and clearly. The changes the Government is proposing in this Bill are not palatable to the Labour Party from a human rights perspective. I actually would have more confidence in these provisions if they were being proposed in a sincere way to improve the system and if the Government were simultaneously driving home hard the point that immigration is fundamentally a good thing, is a sign of a well-functioning economy and country, that we need immigrants and that they are welcome here. The Government has not done that. Instead, we have a situation where arguments being made that are fundamentally racist are being legitimised. The Government is trying out a performative tough-on-immigration stance and is undermining human rights in the process. We have seen how successive UK governments, whether Tory or now, shamefully, Labour, have gone down this road. It does not work because no matter how far to the right a government goes in this regard, it will never be enough for some people. My concern is that the Bill goes further than the EU migration pact, with which we had issues in the first instance, because the Government wants to further constrain the rights of migrants. I do not dispute that our immigration system should be rules based. It should be efficient and clear but it also must uphold fundamental human rights. Rather than vindicating those rights, the Bill seems more intent on constraining them. My colleague Deputy Ahern spoke the previous day about the issues with the term "legal counselling". We have not had any clarity from the Minister in the interim on what that term means. It remains undefined and we do not know who will provide it. On the face of it, it seems it will be little more than a one-way information-providing session given to asylum applicants who will then be left to go through the application process by themselves with little or no guidance. The migration pact makes effective legal assistance a requirement. The Government could and should have used the term "legal advice" but it has actively and deliberately chosen not to do so. It is very easy to imagine a scenario where the absence of proper legal advice leads to errors in applications and sees genuine asylum seekers fleeing war and persecution fail in their applications or be denied specialist care. Perhaps that is the aim - I do not know - but it represents an absolute failure in the obligations we have towards migrants. I know how important legal advice is for people seeking asylum here, both in trying to navigate the system and in vindicating their rights. I know the Minister also understands, in his professional capacity, how important that is. For that reason, I cannot conclude anything other than that this is an attempt to reduce the number of successful applicants. It is not about ensuring the human rights of migrants are upheld. It is not about creating a faster, more efficient and fairer system. We would welcome a Bill that did that. However, this Bill seems to be more of an effort from us to sidestep our obligations, an attempt at performative politics by a Government that is trying to appear as if it is tough on immigration. There are a load of other issues I could raise with this Bill. I touched on how it will increase the criminalisation of international protection applicants and the issues in that regard, but I could also raise issues around unaccompanied children, the powers vested in the Minister, safeguarding, the chief inspectorate, the appeals process, detention and vulnerability assessments. There is so much more I could raise. I know the Minister has indicated that a raft of amendments will be tabled. They have not been tabled yet, however, so it is difficult for us to properly scrutinise these issues. This is very much an incomplete Bill. It is half-baked, notwithstanding that we are only on Second Stage. I hope the Minister's amendments will provide a greater degree of clarity and compassion. Ultimately, I hope the version of the Bill that passes is very different from the one before us.

Sentiment score: 0.03