You have indeed but for a very worthy cause. The Minister will remember the justice committee in the last Dáil. If he was sitting now where we are, I wonder if he would accept that this is an effective way of doing business or passing legislation. Regardless of whether we agree with it, we all agree that it is some of the most important legislation that will come before the Chamber over this Dáil term. There are 276 amendments from across the Opposition and from the Minister to be considered throughout the course of this debate. When the Minister stood here two weeks ago to introduce the Bill on Second Stage, he asked for collaboration. He told us to bring forward our ideas and said he would give them the appropriate level of scrutiny. How in the name of God could the Minister have given our amendments the required level of scrutiny when we had such a short timeframe to get them to him? For the last number of weeks and certainly over the weekend, the staff in my office have been working hard to try to collate the amendments that the Minister has tabled in order to draw up amendments to those amendments. This does not seem like an effective way of passing legislation. Those of us who were in attendance for the pre-legislative scrutiny at the justice committee were taken aback by the extent to which things were absent. There were really important absences in the heads of the Bill. We were assured that a fuller presentation would be given in a timely manner, but that has not materialised. That is no reflection on anybody in the Minister's Department; rather, it is a reflection of how this is being stewarded through the Dáil. I want to speak to my amendments, which focus on the full failures that I believe are in the legislation, but in the first instance I want to make clear that this is not an effective way of doing business. It sets a bad example for all of us across the House. It is unfair on those in the Bills Office, it is unfair on the Department and it is unfair on all of us and our staff, who have had to try to put sense to this in the very short timeframe the Minister gave us to scrutinise his amendments to the most important aspects of this Bill. I hope that over the course of the next few hours, the Minister will not simply vote down the 276 amendments. Let us have proper scrutiny of them and see which ones he is willing to accept.
Sentiment score: 0.19
There are 267 amendments on the Bill, of which I tabled over 90. It would be important if speakers could stick to their own amendments or the section. Otherwise we will be here all night and we will not get through it.
Sentiment score: 0.07
I will be brief. What exactly is the plan for the common travel area? Could the Minister of State outline that in his response? I would be grateful if I knew whether Deputy Carthy's amendment will be supported. We have had so much conversation about the International Protection Bill and the transposition of the EU pact but I have yet to hear a Government Minister or TD lay out for me exactly what is the arrangement when it comes to the common travel area. It is obviously not provided for in the Bill that has been presented to us. It is not provided for in the pact. What exactly is the plan come 12 June?
Sentiment score: 0.08
To build on the question I asked before the Minister of State made his contribution, the crux of the matter for me in supporting amendment No. 4 is that if we are to believe the figures - we have heard numerous different figures but let us settle on 84% of people who claim asylum in Ireland come through the common travel area - to be true, we effectively have a piece of legislation that is massive in its scope and intent but does not provide for 84% of people who come to Ireland. That is particularly scary for me because this legislation deals not only with the detention of people and the suspension of liberty, it also has the detention of children built in. If 84% of people who claim asylum are coming through the common travel area and it cannot be established where they may be returned to, I worry about what happens to people who are being detained. We have a horrific history of incarceration in this country and that really does concern me. It has not been addressed. That is why I will be supporting amendment No.4. Does the Minister of State have any clarification in that regard? Effectively, it seems like we have an international protection Bill with a big hole in it.
Sentiment score: 0.02
I am conscious that in 2020 a UK-Ireland returns agreement was signed that was challenged in the courts on the Irish side and found to be at best legally dubious, so it has not used. The Government updated it in 2024 or 2025 but the UK side has not enacted it at all. We are effectively going to have an International Protection Bill that is a transposition of EU law, which is absolutely fine as a theory, but I will be voting against it. We then have a shadow immigration scheme the Minister of State assures us is operating at an official level but that we cannot have oversight of and that we do not know where jurisdiction applies as to who is intervening on either side of the Border. Absolutely none of us wants to see any erosion of the common travel area at this point but this seems like a fairly significant gap and it has not been explained at all.
Sentiment score: 0.38
Could the Minister clarify absconding? If a person travels through the common travel area to the North, are they considered to have absconded from the State at that point, and if they come back?
Sentiment score: 0.00
I asked the Minister about how absconding was defined and if absconding comes into play if a person travels from the Republic up to the North. He then gave greater clarification. Here is my problem. He has absolutely no lawful way of policing that. There are no measurements. We discussed this on the previous amendment. We absolutely do not want any form of border infrastructure between the North and the Republic. That is where I find this really difficult. The Minister is asking us to vote through something that we cannot measure and certainly does not exist. There is no way of policing it that does not require some form of racial profiling. I know we have had issues in relation to that in the past. How is it measured? How is it policed? How will the Government measure abscondment?
Sentiment score: -0.10
Can I raise a matter of order? It is Committee Stage.
Sentiment score: 0.01
My question pertains to inserting a definition of "legal counselling". It is not a matter of order and it is actually a matter of clarification pertain to the committee's Standing Orders. I asked for a definition of "legal counselling". It was ruled out of order via a money message but legal counselling is provided for in the Bill as we discussed today. How can something in the Bill be ruled out of order via a money message when it is actually provided for in the Bill.
Sentiment score: 0.08
I thank the Ceann Comhairle.
Sentiment score: 0.36
Given that "legal counselling" is mentioned in amendments to section 26 of the Bill, it would be grossly irresponsible to leave it there undefined. If that is to be the case, could the Minister either define it or commit to removing it from the Bill?
Sentiment score: -0.12
The Minister is more familiar than I am with the legal principle of non-regression. Given the absence of a definition and the Minister's commitment to bring in another amendment, it will probably be the case that legal advice in person will no longer be available in the first instance. We can probably all take it at this point that this is where the Bill is going. The Minister might confirm that for me. He might then go further and confirm whether chatbots and AI are now on the table. Shamim Malekmian in the Dublin Inquirer has reported on a freedom of information response from the Department of justice and the Legal Aid Board. This was in the Dublin Inquirer a couple of weeks ago and very clearly showed the potential for chatbots - I can send it on to the Minister - or some technological communications being on the table. Will the Minister confirm that and whether we are going to be breaking the principle of non-regression?
Sentiment score: 0.21
I do not expect the Minister was watching the justice committee meeting yesterday but I will give him a relevant sentence from the Free Legal Advice Centres: "Ireland’s system of civil legal aid may go from crisis to collapse altogether". It stated that would arise specifically from the implementation of the EU migration pact and its transposition. Yesterday, we heard the Legal Aid Board was on the point of collapse. That is the urgency that is required. Will the Minister confirm, because he did not do so previously, whether legal advice will still be available at first instance to applicants?
Sentiment score: -0.11
It is important to say that paralegals cannot provide individualised advice in that sense. In the context of this 12-week timeframe, individuals who come here may suffer from trauma that they cannot convey in the immediacy with which this pact will demand. They will not receive the appropriate level of advice through the mechanisms the Minister has laid out because they will not have a qualified person giving them access to information in a language they understand, relative to the timeframe they need to deal with the trauma for whatever they may have experienced. That is where this is looking like it is going to fall down a lot. I have not been convinced at all by the Minister’s arguments.
Sentiment score: -0.18
I support Deputy Kelly's amendment. It is a shame we have even got to this point. Each time we say this Bill caters for the detention of children and that it is the first time in the history of the State that such legislation will be enacted, I get a sense from the Minister he does not think it is a fair description. Last week either he or the Minister of State said this was only for a 12-hour defined period and I think the phrase used was that it would be done when it was in the best interest of the child. There is no human rights organisation that considers the detention of children to ever be in the best interest of the child. I will be supporting Deputy Kelly's amendment but we need to be very careful. The history of this State and the institutional incarceration of people who committed no crimes should hang heavy over all we do when we seek to enact measures such as this.
Sentiment score: 0.24
I do not believe for a second we are being as cautious as is necessary. I do not believe we should be legislating for the detention of children or for the detention of people who have committed no crime. We already have a scenario where a significant amount of the population in our prisons is made up of our people awaiting deportations. That has created a multitude of injustices. It was captured by the Inspector of Prisons in terms of the overcrowding and all the tragedies that exist in our prison system at the moment. I do not want to create more legislative mechanisms or pathways for the detention of people who have committed no crime, especially children.
Sentiment score: -0.33
It is very difficult because the Minister sounds very reasonable. He has told us that under only three conditions will a child be detained when it is in their best interests. That is fine, but we do not legislate for the Minister's good intent. There will be another Minister for justice and other Governments. There are people who will go further. We are already going further than we thought would be the case three years ago. We can accept the Minister has good intent, but that is not how legislation works. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that the immigration detention of a child "is never in the best interest of a child and always a violation of children’s rights". It is difficult to have a parliamentary back and forth in that context. I accept the bona fides of the Minister, but the high commissioner who is responsible for the human rights of the child has said it is "never in the best interest of a child" to be detained for any period of time. We have tabled amendments to remove that provision, but we may not get to them. The Minister is wrong here.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I move amendment No. 10: In page 23, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following: “(3) (a) In the application and interpretation of this Act, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration in all matters affecting a person who is a minor or who is presumed to be a minor. (b) In determining for the purposes of paragraph (a) what is in the best interests of the child, the following factors shall be taken into account: (i) the views of the child, having regard to the child’s age and maturity; (ii) the child’s identity, including their age, gender, sexual orientation, nationality and religion; (iii) safety, welfare and development needs; (iv) preservation of family relationships; (v) any particular vulnerabilities of the child; and (vi) any other particular circumstances pertaining to the child concerned.”. In our contributions on the last amendment we discussed, we spent a good bit of time discussing the best interests of the child. It should be understood, however, that nowhere in this Bill are "the best interests of the child" defined. This is an important definition. Without it, it leaves it up to the determination of a person in the future who may have a motive that is different from the Minister's. This amendment seeks to provide a definition for "the best interests of the child". We suggest inserting the wording of this amendment between lines 24 and 25 on page 23. The best interests of the child are a foundational principle of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC. It is vital to ensuring children's full and effective enjoyment of their rights. Under Article 3 of the UNCRC, Ireland must ensure that the best interests of the child are treated as a primary consideration in all actions affecting children. This obligation is reinforced by Article 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union and Article 24(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. The application of the best interests principle should be the primary consideration for all sections of the legislation relevant to children. Each legislative instrument sets out explicitly that the best interests of the child must be the primary consideration for the State when implementing the provisions therein that affect children. However, that is not fully reflected in the Bill, so we ask the Minister to include it in the Bill. Therefore, we are not having a conversation about a discretionary understanding of a child's best interests but a factually based one that can live on for as long as this Bill does.
Sentiment score: 0.51
I appreciate that the Minister has said he will "consider" the amendment. Two weeks ago he said he would consider amendments, but I have not seen a huge amount of evidence of that. When we asked for the specification of the rights of the child to be clarified in the Bill, he said this may not be necessary. One of the factors he pointed to was the Constitution. The rights of the child are protected in the Constitution.
Sentiment score: 0.10
No, but the Minister said that the term "the best interests of the child" is in the Constitution. The rights of the family are also enumerated in the Constitution, but later tonight the Minister will obliterate the family reunification scheme. There is no consistency across the board in terms of the arguments or the merits. I have come to the conclusion that the Minister is probably going to vote against all of the amendments. That is fine; he is in Government and we are not. However, there is no way that 276 amendments can all be without merit. Why can we not define the rights of a child here? The Minister may need to add two or three things through Seanad amendments if he wishes, but why do we not establish collectively across the Chamber that it would be in the best interests to put some specification on what exactly the best interests of a child would be? Should he wish to amend that further in the Seanad, that is up to the Minister, but at least we can come away with the sense that maybe this was a worthwhile several-year process that we all engaged in, where we were told at each point there would be something coming at the next point. It simply has not happened. I think we can all agree that the best interests of children should actually have some specification in a Bill of this importance.
Sentiment score: 0.19
I will support Deputy Kelly’s amendment. There is an element of having your cake and eating it when it comes to the pact and the measures the Government says are required. When it requires safeguards, the Government seems to offer fewer. When it requires oversight, it seems to offer the bare minimum. I think that is what Deputy Kelly is getting at here. There is an absence of oversight and a consolidation of power in the Minister of the day for decades to come. It is a dangerous space when we operate without independent oversight. We have seen multiple failures already in the area of justice because of the absence of independent oversight.
Sentiment score: 0.05
Too often during this debate and for the past number of months we have heard this will be looked at and this will be assessed. There is very little confidence about the manifestation of those words as something tangible we can look at and scrutinise to see how it fits into our laws. It is one of the reasons this Bill is almost designed to fail. I am going to stick with the figure of 84% of people who claim asylum in this area doing so through the common travel area. I am sticking with that without evidential basis other than the fact I have a heard a Minister say it even though several other Ministers have given a different figure. This is the scandal with this Bill as it stands because we share a common travel area with Britain. A returns agreement between Great Britain and Ireland signed in 2020 proved to be worth no more than the paper it was written on. It was challenged in the courts from the Irish side within a couple of months and it fell down. New regulations were brought in in 2024-25 and the British side just said they were not applicable to them and they would not take any more returns. It makes a nonsense of this whole Bill that there are no answers to this very significant question. My fear, which is probably different from those of others in the Chamber, is that this will fall down and we are legislating for places of detention, including for children, and we have no answers to the fundamental issue that if a person claims asylum here, who we have established came through the common travel area, there is no means by which he or she can be returned and therefore we will have a detention system with terrible consequences. I will continue to reiterate that our country's history of institutional incarceration means we should be treading very carefully. Rather than doing that, we have this Bill, which is scheduled to be law by 12 June. I appreciate this is not the Minister of State's fault in a singular sense but it is grossly irresponsible of all of us to continue with this Bill given the gaps in it.
Sentiment score: -0.09
Britain has moved from being a safe third country because of its Rwanda policy. The Irish courts found that they could not ensure that people who were returned to Britain would be safe from harm. I accept that the policy of redesignating Britain as a safe third country is because we think Keir Starmer is a lot friendlier than Nigel Farage or whoever may be coming next, but that is the problem with legislating for the moment. Within a short space of time, we could have a scenario whereby Nigel Farage is the Prime Minister in Britain and the Rwanda policy may be on the table again, resulting in an increased level of volatility. That is why this does not make sense. We are legislating for the moment on the assumption that everything will be as it is when we know that is not the case.
Sentiment score: 0.06
If the last hour has proven anything to me, it is that in many ways the Minister has got his way with bringing Committee Stage to the floor of the Dáil. There are 270 amendments and we will not get close to any of them. There will be no scrutiny of the Minister's family reunification changes that are horrendously cruel. There will be no scrutiny of the Minister's places of detention health screening. We may as well throw the amendment book out the window. Next week, we in the Social Democrats will pick a particular motion early on, we will all come in and we will give a big speech on each of them because Committee Stage has gone out the window now. The Minister is the cause of that. The Minister has purposely set out to avoid scrutiny and he has achieved that end. I have to speak to the amendment that Deputy Carthy brought forward an hour ago. If I were to do a full impact assessment of the centre that opened up in East Wall two and a half years ago, that impact assessment would look very different now from what it looked like two and a half years ago. If I were to have done it two and a half years ago, I never would have been able to factor in the benefit of a young man like Asem, who lived in that centre that is entirely unsuitable, playing in goal for the local football team, getting player of the year and working with local construction workers. I would never have been able to factor in the communities that helped build the Mud Island and Ballybough community garden. I would never have been able to factor in those who are part and parcel of the community now. It would have talked about consultation and about protest, but I never would have got to talk about the lighting of the Christmas tree in December last, where people who were potentially outside at one time are certainly inside with a cup of tea in their hand and making friends with people who are part of their community now. That is why I am hesitant when I think about community impacts because I do not think you get a full impact. It does not absolve the Department or the Minister's predecessor of the shambles he made of building a system suitable for purpose, and there was a way. The Catherine Day report demonstrated that there would be talked-of reception centres. That was updated to meet the increasing demand after Covid when we had a larger increase of people coming here seeking international protection. In this whole conversation, we have heard no talk of the Catherine Day report on State-run reception centres, with the exception of Deputy Mac Lochlainn, who referenced them. I hope the proposer might clarify this, but I am conscious that I do not want to see a preposition that the privatised model will be the one that goes forward. The privatised model has absolutely failed us but, within that, we also have to accept there will always be people who come here in search of sanctuary. People will always need to be housed with dignity, care and compassion. Before I decide on how I am going to vote on this amendment, could the Minister tell me if the Catherine Day report is still Government policy? Where are our State reception centres? Each of us who call for State reception centres should be able to provide for ones that may exist in our own communities. They should not just say they might exist elsewhere. If the Minister would like, I am happy to give some suggestions on where they would fit in, because we have an obligation and that is never going to go away. Migration is always going to happen in different trends, be that through climate migration or people fleeing from wars that may take place in future. However, we have responsibilities here. We all have a responsibility as parliamentarians to stand true to our values when these things come to pass.
Sentiment score: 0.07