I will be voting against this motion for a variety of reasons, but first when it comes to the transposition of the asylum and migration pact into Irish law through the International Protection Bill 2025. Anybody at the justice committee a month ago when this was going through pre-legislative scrutiny could not in good conscience agree to advance it one Stage further. Heads of the Bill were missing. Vital aspects of the Bill fundamentally change who we are as a country. The Bill pertains to how we allow the detention of children, how we screen adolescents and how we change the nature of access to legal rights to an undefined reference to legal counsel. There is so much wrong with the Bill that we could not in good conscience allow ourselves to be a participant in its advancement in any form. These motions are not abstract measures. They are the kinds of decisions that shape how the EU, and Ireland within it, treats people seeking protection, people coming here to work and people simply trying to live their lives with dignity as well as people trying to reclaim their lives from a terror they may have experienced someplace else, such as is part of all of our history here in Ireland. We have seen over the past number of years a real tightening of rhetoric and a hardening of action when it comes to migration and asylum across the EU. The Bill is effectively a response to that. Instead of providing a clear counterbalance and being a rights-based voice at that table, the Government has chosen at every step to mirror that tightening and to follow the EU's lead even when it runs contrary even to our own stated values. Worse still, the Government has chosen to follow the path of the United Kingdom. That has been very clear in the rhetoric of recent days. I will repeat what I said to the Taoiseach today for anyone who wishes to hear it. For the life of me, I cannot understand how anybody who aspires to Irish republicanism could follow the lead of the UK and the influence of Nigel Farage. We see that very clearly. It is as if the Government woke up and discovered recently that there is a shared common travel area. These issues were raised last year when the pact was going through the justice committee. The Government seems immune to the fact it was raised then. We are being asked to do this today through three separate motions, each of which is significant and linked to wider EU trends of locking down migration and deepening security powers, yet all we are told is that they warrant no further scrutiny. I simply do not accept that, nor do I have trust in the Government. We are told the motion on the justice programme is harmless and simply a continuation of an existing programme that funds judicial co-operation, access to justice and the digitalisation of courts. However, every time we expand EU-level justice mechanisms, we need to be certain they are not being used to underpin policies that diminish rights, reduce procedural safeguards, or push member states into accelerated processes that undermine fairness. We do not have that here. Neither is the motion for internal security a small measure. This is about billions being devoted to policing, surveillance, data-sharing, cybercrime capabilities, intelligence exchange and operational co-operation between police forces across the EU. We are being asked to endorse a massive new security funding structure without knowing, first, what specific Irish systems it will integrate into, second, what data will be shared, and third, what oversight exists. On that basis, I will be voting against the motion. Given the current climate, the EU asylum, migration and integration fund, AMIF, is clearly the most important of the three, and the one that most clearly demonstrates why we cannot keep rubber-stamping these proposals. The AMIF is being sold as a benign pot of money for integration projects, NGO supports and aspects of the refugee programme. We know what is left unsaid. We know what AMIF funds have been used for across Europe - detention facilities, returns programmes, border enforcement and the hardening of asylum procedures. We know what Ireland is doing right now domestically. It is increasing citizenship residency requirements from three years to five years, narrowing family reunification and introducing charges on people in IPAS accommodation. I will come back to the latter point if I have time. These are political choices that mirror the EU's direction of travel. The Government wants to opt into a funding framework that will reinforce and accelerate those choices without explaining how the money will be used, what conditions it carries, or what rights-based safeguards will exist. What is happening here is a very familiar pattern. This is the exact same language we were given before the EU migration pact. We all know now how significant that package was and will be as we transpose the International Protection Bill. We cannot keep legislating like this. We cannot keep allowing opt-ins. I wish to talk about some of the measures that were introduced today because they are important in the context of what we are being asked to vote on here. When it comes to family reunification, the Government has chosen to allow it only for the most wealthy - those who have accumulated enough funds. It has set a new standard that is remarkable. It has introduced a condition whereby access to welfare would somehow diminish a person's right to citizenship. Nobody has told me whether, for example, a person who lost an arm in a conflict and needs a disability payment will remove the person's right to citizenship. These ridiculously cruel measures are now being put in statutory form to the effect that access to welfare entitlements somehow diminishes the right to citizenship. It is Thatcherite in all but name. We are making people who earn a paltry wage pay for substandard accommodation, which sets the bar that somehow those people should be grateful for the opportunity. A person earning €150 for doing whatever job he or she has been able to get has to give up €15. This is not a cost-saving measure to the State. It actually costs the State money to initiate this level of cruelty. We are being told that this is fair and is in keeping with what other EU countries are doing and there is nothing to see here. We will not be supporting this motion. The International Protection Bill, as it is currently being transposed, is an absolute shame on anybody who believes that such legislation can be brought to pre-legislative scrutiny without heads of the Bill or answers to vital questions. There is no trust when it comes to the Government's treatment of integration. It is a descent not only into far-right narrative but also policy. We are at a crossroads in terms of how we treat people in this country. For a country with a history such as ours of enforced incarceration, monetising oppression and poverty and imprisoning people who have committed no crime, be it in Magdalen laundries or mother and baby homes, the idea that we would initiate detention facilities for children is an affront to our history.

Sentiment score: 0.12