Lambasting the immigration Bill, Mr Joe Costello (Lab) said its tenor indicated that we were not too great a step away from racism.
To highlight his opposition he recalled dealing with a Chinese asylum-seeker who had been in Tiananmen Square and was trying to join his sister in London. "He thought there was no water between Ireland and Britain and arrived in Dublin. He was very quickly arrested."
He said the man spent over six months in Mountjoy jail and was then deported. "That was the sad result of what happened to a person fleeing persecution." Mr Costello said the Minister's amendments were a fudge, ostensibly indicating that he accepted basic principles, while in fact the Minister and the Department reserved responsibility for deporting non-nationals, without recourse to any proper investigation.
"On the basis of the Minister looking into his heart, he can decide that the presence of a non-national may not be conducive to the common good." He asked how such legislation could be acceptable.
Taking issue with Mr Costello's view, Mr John Dardis (PD) rejected the suggestion that the Government would act in a racist way. The legislation had had to be brought in response to a court case. Was Mr Costello suggesting that this country's borders be left open to criminals, terrorists and others on the run from democratic jurisdictions elsewhere? If the legislation was not passed, that would be the consequence.
Mr Dardis said he believed refugees and asylum-seekers should have the right to work. It was extraordinary that fruit-growers in Wexford were recruiting workers from the former Soviet Union and that the State was looking to Germany to attract workers.