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Seanad
‹ Order of Business

Direct provision policy

Summary

Senator Ó Ríordáin urges the House to maintain its united and effective scrutiny of direct provision and objects to its omission from the programme for government.

On my second point, I stood in this House on a number of occasions as Minister of State and what impressed me most about it was that it stood and spoke with one voice. The House was never more powerful than it was on the issue of direct provision. I believe Members will know, regardless of their political background, that this House was very impressive and managed to move that debate onto a higher platform when Members all stood together and tried to move the issue along. Once again, I was very taken aback when I saw a deletion from the programme for Government. It was a line from the draft programme for Government which referred to implementation of the McMahon report. Many Members of this House had difficulties with the report and possibly felt it did not go far enough. They believe the direct provision system should have been abolished, but at least the McMahon report was the first proper report on the direct provision system in 15 years and it would have gone a long way towards helping the lives of those in the system. The recommendation made in the draft programme for Government that the McMahon report be implemented was deleted and does not feature in the actual programme for Government. I ask that the House again use its campaigning zeal to seek reform of the direct provision system. Collectively and regardless of political backgrounds, all Members believe these reforms and the McMahon report need to be implemented in full.

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