I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. The International Protection Bill 2026 is the legislative vehicle for Ireland's wholesale opt-in to the EU migration and asylum pact, and that is its fundamental flaw. Sinn Féin has been clear that the major part of this pact is not in Ireland's interests. It undermines Irish sovereignty, hands critical powers relating to migration and asylum to the European Union and directly impedes our ability to make decisions based on our own unique circumstances. We are an island nation. We are not in the Schengen Area, but we are part of a common travel area, CTA, with a state outside the EU. Our challenges, from managing the CTA to our housing crisis and stretched public services, are specific to us. Yet, this Government has signed up to a one-size-fits-all EU system, ignoring the unanimous cross-party recommendation of the Oireachtas committee on justice to reconsider opting out of the major part of the pact. This is a profound failure of political judgment. Let us be clear about what this Bill does. It ties us into rigid EU timelines and procedures that our system, by the Government's own admission, is not ready to meet yet. We have a protection system already in crisis, with massive backlogs, appeals, delays and unenforced deportation orders. The Government's staffing projections reveal a gaping hole between what is needed and what is in place. Failure to meet these new EU deadlines will not just mean continued dysfunction, it will expose the Irish State to daily infringement fines from Europe. We are signing a blank cheque with taxpayers' money. This Bill risks outsourcing elements of our independent foreign policy. It should be for the Irish Government to decide, based on our principles of neutrality and human rights, from which conflicts we offer sanctuary. We cannot allow those decisions to be indirectly shaped by the foreign policy priorities of larger EU states. The Bill and this Government are blind to the fact that the civil legal aid system and Tusla are a breaking point. This Bill will place unbearable new demands on them. We have seen the tragic vulnerability of unaccompanied minors disappearing from safe care. To proceed without fixing these foundations in the first instance is irresponsible and dangerous. Let us address what this Bill distracts from, namely the real Government-made crises in our system. These include the profiteering from State accommodation contracts where a small number of private operators make millions while communities are left without support, the scandalous planning of exemptions that ignore local capacity and the lack of a coherent, funded integration strategy that builds social cohesion from the ground up. That is where the focus of attention should be, but of course it is not. Sinn Féin supported two aspects of the EU pact, the asylum and immigration management regulation and Eurodac. We did so because they are practical and help to determine the responsible member state for an application and provide a vital fingerprint database to combat trafficking and manage returns, for want of a more humane term. Our engagement should have ended with picking measures that serve Ireland's needs. Instead, the Government has voluntarily surrendered our flexibility and ignored the safeguard of Protocol 21, which is precisely designed to protect our sovereignty in areas like this. It has tied the hands of future Irish Governments in dealing bilaterally with Britain on CTA matters. We need an international protection system that is fair, efficient and enforced. It should be one that commands public confidence. This Bill does not deliver that. It legislates for a rushed adoption of an EU framework that does not fit Ireland, overseen by a Government that has not prepared for the consequences. We do not fix a broken system by layering on more unattainable obligations from Brussels. We fix it by addressing the profiteering, enforcing the rules, investing in integration and making sovereign decisions in the best interests of the Irish people. I urge Deputies to reject this Bill.

Sentiment score: -0.02