Removal of tents is no substitute for a long-term plan

The authorities’ removal of 100 tents from the banks of the Grand Canal in Dublin is welcome and largely beneficial for everybody involved, including those seeking international protection who set up this impromptu campsite. As Taoiseach Simon Harris recently stressed, we cannot permit such situations to linger in our capital and pose threats to public health and hygiene. The same approach must apply anywhere else in Ireland.

However, in welcoming the latest move, we must also acknowledge that this is reactive politics with elements of window-dressing as we are today four weeks away from the European Parliament and local council elections. The reality is that the removal of this encampment only emphasises the need to find a more efficient method of resolving a problem that is not going away any time soon.

In a special report for the Government in November, former European Commission secretary general Catherine Day urged that policy on the treatment of asylum-seekers be brought into the mainstream.

She noted that for more than 20 years, Ireland has relied on the system known as direct provision. This approach left aslyum-seekers in the shadows of Irish life. It has also been widely criticised nationally and internationally, with some predictions of future tribunals of inquiry and mass compensation claims.

The commitment in the 2020 Programme for Government to end direct provision is no longer feasible. Unforeseen events, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, meant such action had to be deferred, but this deferral does not obviate the need to integrate successful asylum applicants into mainstream Irish life.

At the same time, we are awaiting the fulfilment of recent promises to process international protection applications within 90 days.

Any credible immigration system must include the expulsion of those who have not succeeded in applications to stay here.

The long delays in processing applications thus far are unacceptable, unfair to those involved and have constituted a major part of the malaise surrounding this issue. Anti-immigration elements have taken advantage of and fed on concerns that the Government is not in control of this issue.

A dishonourable realpolitik has been allowed to develop whereby Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman and his officials have been given little real support from the rest of the Government to deal with an evolving situation. Ms Day’s recommendation amounted to a whole-of-government approach to the issue.

Ireland’s housing, health, education, transport and planning policies still do not include those people seeking refuge in future projections. This is in spite of the reality that many are likely to make their permanent homes here.

The failure to include a sizeable number of people in these core policies amounts to storing up many more problems for the future.