Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Seanadóir Hackett fosta. I acknowledge and thank colleagues for their solidarity and support for our colleague, Deputy Martin Kenny. Deputy Martin Kenny will not be deterred by this, as troubling and concerning as it is. While I disagree with a lot of the sentiment expressed by Senator McDowell, I agree with him in that I want to have the debate about direct provision. I want to have the debate about the failure to deal with the facilities, the processes, the needs and the care that are required by the people who are coming to this State to seek refuge. I want to talk about the rise of the right in this State. I want to talk about how it is able to exploit the economic, ideology-driven decisions that are causing poverty and deprivation in this State, which is ripe and fertile ground for the right to exploit. I want to talk about that in the course of that debate.

I also want to talk about what Senator Gavan said about the use of Shannon Airport to displace a lot of these people from the Middle East. I want to talk about why the Irish Defence Forces are moving from search and rescue work in the Mediterranean and drifting ever closer towards participating in a European army. I want to talk about all of that in the round and I want to particularly afford everybody in this House the opportunity to take a stand, like Deputy Martin Kenny, in support of people who are vulnerable and who are coming to this State to flee some of the awful devastation being inflicted upon people around the world, much of it via Shannon Airport, to our shame.

I want to commend the latest initiative from Ireland's Future yesterday. Over 1,000 signatories from the civic world, political life, academia, the arts and sport came together, in this State this time, to respectfully ask the Government to prepare for new constitutional horizons and not to fall into the Brexit trap of constitutional change coming about in an ill-prepared or ill-informed manner. It is a responsible and prudent call and it is the right thing to do. It is a conversation within broader Irish life that mirrors the conversations that are happening in board rooms, club rooms and even in this Chamber on occasion, that identify the real need to have an inclusive, engaged and informed conversation about where we want to be. The Constitution compels us to do that and the Good Friday Agreement allows us and affords us the opportunity to deliver that for people. Tús maith leath na hoibre, a good start is half the work. I want today to reiterate that call from Ireland's Future through the Leader. It was yet another impressive initiative calling on the Government to get ready.

Well said.

I was not going to speak but after Senator McDowell's contribution I would like to add to his call for a debate, which is needed. It was announced that a group is being set up to examine direct provision. When I looked at in the budget, however, one thing Senator McDowell is right about is-----

We are not going to have a debate now.

I know but the Senator spoke about a system whereby we would assess people in a speedy and orderly fashion. When I looked at the budget this year, straight away I saw there was a 1% increase on the last budget in respect of how much would be spent on the system to move people through the asylum process. If we were really committed to addressing people's assessment for asylum, we would have seen a much larger increase than 1%. We need to have a conversation about this issue.

Not enough has been said here today about the Taoiseach's comments in the paper when let run without somebody telling him what to say. His views became very clear on a number of issues but one of them was on direct provision. I am not going to refer to the nationalities he spoke about but to a phrase he used in one of those sections, that we cannot give everybody free houses. Not only is he not fixing the direct provision centre issue, he is also using a term that is coined all the time against working class people in terms of being able to access social housing. He is purposely trying to pit direct provision against ordinary people in the housing system. That cannot be a conversation that is allowed be had.

Hear, hear.

I do not think when we have the conversation about direct provision that we should be talking about the housing shortage. The housing shortage is an issue in itself that we need to address but we cannot pit people against each other when we are talking about the demand for housing. I want to make sure that message is very clear. I call on the Leader to arrange statements and a debate on direct provision.