Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation Dail Éireann — 2024-04-17 ============================================================ Marian Harkin (IND), Sligo-Leitrim The groundbreaking EU pact on asylum and migration has five new directives. Three are already agreed. A set of recommendations is going straight to the justice committee without any opportunity to discuss its profound implications in this House. I canvassed twice in favour of the Lisbon treaty, which enshrines our opt-out on justice and home affairs, which was in the Treaty of Amsterdam, along with our colleagues from Denmark who have chosen not to opt into this legislation. When I did that canvassing, I honestly believed that if we were to opt into any of the measures in justice and home affairs, there would be a full and detailed examination of the possible consequences of either a full or partial opt-in or not opting in in this House, yet we are not getting that. We are getting platitudes. What we need is a detailed analysis of the specific benefits or drawbacks from opting in or out. It is really important that we get this right from a societal perspective as well as on a legislative basis. It is up to the Taoiseach to ensure that we do. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2024-04-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2024-04-17