I wish the Taoiseach the very best in retirement. We may not agree with him most of the time but we certainly, on a personal level, wish him the very best.

I have a question on promised legislation. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that the ban on asylum seekers working is unconstitutional. It has suspended its order for six months to allow the Government and Oireachtas time to right this grave injustice. This constitutional crisis arises in the first instance because of section 9(4) of the Refugee Act 1996, which prohibited a person seeking asylum from entering employment before the final determination of his or her application. This Act was replaced by the International Protection Act 2015. It also prohibits asylum seekers from seeking or entering employment, or being employed or otherwise engaged in any gainful work or occupation. The direct provision system is a bad system that should have been scrapped a long time ago. It keeps thousands of people trapped in a process that is dehumanising and degrading. It is also a costly system, on which Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments have spent over €0.5 billion since 2009. An tUachtarán, Mr. Michael D. Higgins, has said the refusal to allow asylum seekers the right to work is heartbreaking and immoral. He is correct in saying that. Will the Taoiseach agree to discuss urgently with the Opposition parties emergency legislation that can be expedited in its passage through the Oireachtas?

This is an important judgment by the Supreme Court. The Tánaiste, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, and the Minister of State with direct responsibility in this area, Deputy David Stanton, have done a lot of work on this. Within the past month, before this judgment, they asked their officials to begin work to identify the options for and the barriers to asylum seekers gaining access to the labour market in particular circumstances. This judgment, therefore, gives this work increased priority. As the judgment has only just become available, as the Deputy is aware, the Department of Justice and Equality officials, together with the Office of the Attorney General, will examine it in the immediate future. It is important to note that the International Protection Act, which introduces the single application procedure for protection applicants, was brought through the Oireachtas by the Tánaiste and commenced on 30 December 2016. That is important legislation. The new Act is specifically designed to address the delays in decision-making on asylum claims. Since the beginning of the year, applications have already been decided with applicants having been recognised as refugees who can access the labour market now. Overall, 92% of the 173 recommendations in the McMahon report are now implemented or partially implemented, or are in progress. That is a significant increase on the figure of 80% in the first audit of progress, which was published last June. One hundred and twenty-one of the recommendations are now implemented, with a further 38 partially implemented or in progress. It includes the key recommendation of the working group, that is, the one on the introduction of the single application procedure within our international protection process.

I do not have any difficulty at all in saying to the Deputy that the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, in particular, will be happy to engage with Opposition Members to discuss the outcome of the ruling of the Supreme Court. I expect that once officials from the Office of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice and Equality have gone through the judgment in detail, the Minister of State will be very happy to have a discussion with Opposition Members and move on in the context of the findings of the Supreme Court.