Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald speaking at the launch of the party’s plan to fix the International Protection System said:
“At the heart of our policy is community – the need for engagement and dialogue and a new approach which moves away from a policy based on private profiteering to locating centres only in areas with the capacity and services to support them.
“Today Sinn Féin is setting out our plan to fix the broken international protection system and create a fair and humane system that works. This is a significant intervention from our party. Our approach is very different to that of government. At the heart of our policy is community – the need for engagement and dialogue and a new approach which moves away a policy based on private profiteering to locating centres only in areas with the capacity and services to support them.
“This policy outlines a system that recognises both the pressures that many communities are under and the needs of those seeking international protection.
“As Irish republicans and a party of the left, our plan is rooted in our values of equality, anti-racism and human rights and stands firmly with working-class communities who have been neglected and forgotten for generations.
“We take the approach that specific and practical actions are needed to deliver a system that works well, works quickly, where the rules are applied, where fairness is paramount, and where people are treated with dignity and local communities are treated with respect.
“Our plan is built around 5 key actions:
· Ending private profiteering and moving to state run accommodation.
· Locating new centres only in areas that have the capacity and resources to support them.
· Responding to the right of communities to be heard and listened to by creating a standard and transparent approach to community consultation, including the right to make submissions to IPAS.
· Ensuring fast and fair decisions by trebling the number of staff across the system. This would facilitate safe returns and where required deportations, for those who are not eligible for international protection. Those who are granted asylum should be integrated into our communities and into Irish society. These are people who want to use their skills and abilities to contribute positively to the country which has given them refuge.
· Ending the two tier system so that all those seeking international protection are treated equally irrespective of where you come from.
“Perhaps more than any other western country, Ireland knows the societal, economic and the human impact of forced emigration. As conflict, poverty, and the climate crisis, force more people from their home countries, Ireland, as part of the international community, must do much more to help address the causes of migration.
“What we need in the here and now is a fair system that works. Sinn Féin’s plan, shaped by common sense and the lived reality of people’s lives. This plan is about creating a fair system that works. A system that safeguards the cohesion of society for all who call Ireland home, a system that ensures fairness for local communities, decency, common sense, the protection of human rights and that also commands public confidence and support.”
