Migration and direct provision
Gerry Adams welcomes plans to accept additional migrants and asks about international protection legislation and the McMahon report on direct provision before the Chair cuts him short.
This morning, the Cabinet agreed to take another 300 migrants between 2015 and 2016. I very much welcome that small easing of the burden and the plight of people affected, particularly arising from the conflict in Syria. It may be a pertinent time to ask the Taoiseach about the international protection Bill and the report of the McMahon working group on direct provision.
A recent report from the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions on the direct provision system concluded that it is not fit for purpose. This report will be debated here on Friday. Two weeks ago, the Ombudsman for Children expressed concerns about children in the direct provision system. The special rapporteur on child protection has repeatedly raised his concerns that our State may well be in breach of human rights treaties because of the length of time children are held in the system. The Health Information and Quality Authority has produced a further disturbing report on the same issue. The Taoiseach informed me before that the report by Mr. Justice Bryan McMahon will be published by the end of May. It is now June. When will his report be published? Will the Taoiseach commit to holding a debate on it when it is published? When does he expect the international protection Bill to be published?
In the programme for Government, there is a commitment to introduce a reformed and consolidated domestic violence Bill to address all aspects of domestic violence, threatened violence and intimidation in a manner that protects victims. This echoes commitments from the election manifestoes of both the Fine Gael and Labour parties. Yet, with less than a year to go in its term, the Government has not signed up to the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.
