I welcome the comments by Deputy Geoghegan about obligations to children. I am delighted to see that someone in Fine Gael is finally realising that we have obligations to children and, in particular the 6,000 homeless children in Ireland and that our obligation should be to them. Ireland's international protection system has been exploited for far too long. The problem has never been the compassion of the Irish people but the problem was the permissibility of the Irish State. The fact is we were too obliging and too quiet. We sat down, took what we were given and said nothing as if this was just the way it was and we could not do anything. There were extremely weak controls and by having weak controls, it led to abuse. There was also slow decision-making by this Administration and the previous Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Administration. Weak administration rewards incompetence and the lack of co-operation. The failure to enforce laws and return people undermines the rule of law. The measures in the Bill are serious measures. I accept that. They are the right measures to introduce but they do not go far enough. These are measures that should have been in place a long time ago. Mandatory screening is basic governance. Biometric identification is non-negotiable and non-co-operation with the State should never be an option. I previously mentioned in this House people who entered Dublin airport and when asked how they arrived in this country, which is one of the standard questions, replied: "I arrived by hot air balloon; how else do you think I got here?" That is not somebody who is interested in being a good citizen in this country. Anyone who refuses to co-operate should not be facilitated in this country. I refer to the number of people who are entering this country without a passport or any sort of identification. Thousands of those people have entered this country. When some is running and fleeing for their life and getting on a boat and arriving in Spain, Greece or Italy, which we see a lot of the time, I understand why they may not have passport on them. However, I cannot understand how someone can enter this country after flying from France or Britain because there were no direct flights from their own country without any passport or identification.

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