The Taoiseach may or may not be aware of it but next Tuesday, 20 June, is World Refugee Day. It is both an opportunity for us to celebrate the incredible strength, perseverance and courage refugees have shown globally in the face of adverse and varied reactions from governments around the world to their plight, and an opportunity for us to protest aspects of what is happening to them at the moment, particularly being left to sleep on the streets and the housing crisis having an impact on that. This and consecutive Governments have been responsible for that housing crisis, not that I need to remind the Taoiseach of that. I would like to encourage people to come out and support that event and show their support for refugees at 5.30 p.m. at the Garden of Remembrance next Tuesday.

We must also say that more needs to be done and something could be done on the question of the right to work. I have often heard it said that with every hungry belly there comes a pair of hands and a brain. Nothing is truer than that human beings are made of the stuff that means they interact with the environment around them in order to create wealth and do good things for society. Why not give these people the opportunity to work, in a country where there is a shortage of labour in every aspect of the economy?

Refugees have the right to work in Ireland.

After six months.

They have had the right to work in Ireland for a long time, once they achieve refugee status, and anybody coming from Ukraine, as beneficiaries of temporary protection, also have the right to work from the moment they arrive in the country and get a personal public service number.

But there is a group that is treated differently.

The group that is treated differently comprises people who are applying for international protection, and only a minority of them gain refugee status. That is a fact and it is a fact the Deputy should acknowledge because it is not the same thing.

It does not stop them from working until they get an answer to their applications.

It stops them being refugees, because they are not refugees.