I support Deputy Gannon on this amendment. It is incredibly sad that we are moving towards this system of detention not just in Ireland but also across Europe through the EU migration and asylum pact, particularly because it took the State so long to untangle international protection from pursuing people through arrest. The courts had to achieve that through a series of cases to eventually try to meet our commitments under the EU reception directive. The worst part is that we have never done international protection well. We were just about starting to get to the point where we would do that but then we had to deal with crises that hampered any well-intentioned efforts by the Government to address the matter. To take, lock, stock and barrel, what we did not have to take from the EU migration and asylum pact is concerning. It is often forgotten that we could have taken a modular approach to this but chose not to. Instead of taking that approach, we are moving towards a system that will detain people. The subsection is an example of an unlawful detention proposal that we cannot stand over as a State. Deputy Gannon is correct in that we have a history of this. We know what happens. This is a trend across multiple countries and we cannot stand by it. Therefore, I support amendment No. 21 and ask the Government to do the same.

Sentiment score: -0.10

Human trafficking is a horrendous scourge on our society. It is a multibillion dollar crime that is carried out by organised crime gangs. The delicacy with which we have to treat victims of human trafficking cannot be overstated. I referenced earlier how long it had taken us, essentially driven by the courts, to untangle international protection from allegations of crime. The case I was referencing directly relates to these amendments because in 2019, a Vietnamese woman was found in a cannabis growhouse and it was her case that unlocked the fact that even though she had been trafficked, she still had to fight a prosecution against her and it took that case, after years of so much work from so many civil society organisations and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, which I used to work for, to force this State to recognise the way that international protection and human trafficking are intertwined. To think that this Government is sleepwalking us back into a situation where people who are victims of human trafficking are going to be prosecuted, penalised and detained is head-in-the-sand stuff of the highest order. International protection is messy. Getting your documents ready to travel from a situation of persecution, conflict, war and torture is virtually impossible. The vulnerability that you put yourself in and the way that you make yourself so susceptible to exploitation by bad actors are off the charts, so to think we cannot see that nuance and intricacy within the process and legislate to effectively deal with it shocks me to the core. I support this amendment.

Sentiment score: -0.47

The answer to the Minister's question about how we would do it is that if we are seeking to detain people, we have an obligation to determine whether they are victims of of human trafficking. The Minister mentioned the NRM but that extends well beyond An Garda Síochána. There are supposed to be civil society groups that are available through the NRM and are compelled and empowered to identify victims of human trafficking. One of the criticisms of this Bill going through pre-legislative scrutiny was that there was too much ministerial control. This is an amendment that gives more oversight to the Minister to allow for this as a ground and I cannot understand why he would push back on it. The Minister asked how we are supposed to tell whether somebody is just claiming to be a victim of trafficking. This betrays the level of mistrust this Government has regarding people in the international protection system if the starting point is always that people are here to cheat the system, to game it and to take advantage of our systems. That is what is coming through in this kind of thinking - how do we police it? Through this legislation and through being a signatory to the migration and asylum pact at EU level, we are placing multiple barriers in front of the right to claim asylum, which is an internationally upheld right. We do not agree that we should be doing those things but if we are going to go down that path, then we have every obligation to protect people who are trafficked. I agree with the Minister that many people do not know that they have been trafficked and that it is messy and hard but that is all the more reason those people need to be protected at every stage of the process. The vulnerability assessments have got to a place where they are a box-ticking exercise. The only way we can identify these things properly is by actually working with people and listening to them over a long period to make sure they are being given the services they need to support them at the most difficult time of their lives. I am afraid that the questions that the Minister is putting forward do not hold water. They simply belie this attitude of mistrust when we should be extending our offer of support to people when they need it most.

Sentiment score: 0.01

The Minister presents to us a hypothetical scenario where someone comes in and is sent to Citywest. This is the system he is presenting to us. We are trying our best to fix parts within it, which we believe will make it a humane and fairer system. Given the Minister presented one hypothetical scenario, here is another one. Let us say a government of the future is even harder on migration than this one is and has even more right-wing views on international protection, which penalise people for being in the system at all, and there is a screening centre that is a set of tents in a field in the middle of the country. We are going to send somebody there who, coming off the boat, is pleading with officials that they are a victim of international trafficking. The Minister cannot just present one hypothetical and expect to say this is going to work for it. It is the Minister's responsibility to build in the processes that will identify victims of trafficking so they are not treated in ways that retraumatise, penalise and prosecute them in ways that are just not humane within this system. That is what we are saying. We appreciate that there is a system to deal with international protection that allows for people to put forward their claim for asylum and for it to be treated. Within that system, there are also people who have been trafficked and who have experienced incredibly egregious crimes against them. We are trying to allow for those people to be treated differently within this cohort of people looking for international protection. That is what this amendment tries to do and that is what we are trying to resolve with it.

Sentiment score: 0.06