International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18 ============================================================ Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan We have no way of scrutinising a number of the amendments, particularly the amendment I tabled on section 1, which we are discussing now. I would have thought that amendment No. 1 was eminently sensible. I would have hoped that the Minister was willing to put forward a stipulation that would have stated the Bill would not come into operation until he can assure the House that the Department has the capacity to bring it into operation, and that administrative, operational and staffing arrangements have been put in place to enable the State to comply with the requirements of the Bill. This is eminently sensible. In other words, it should be stated that the Minister will not enact legislation until he can be assured that he can implement it and that the resources allocated for the purpose of implementing the Bill, including staffing levels, accommodation capacity, interpretation services, legal assistance provision and IT systems, are in place. This is eminently sensible. The Minister is signing us up to obligations which he cannot assure the House will be adhered to. The Minister should ensure measures are taken to ensure that all relevant bodies, agencies and contractors are capable of performing the functions assigned to them under the Act. This should be an assurance the Minister would be happy to include in legislation. He should state that he would not enact it until he can be assured of this. I am sure other members of the committee will tell the Minister that we had a discussion on the civil legal aid system. It is already at bursting point but it will have more obligations and more responsibilities under the Act. However, the Minister has provided no clarification as to when or if he will implement the recommendations of the civil legal aid review. There is a very good chance that civil legal aid will burst as a result of the additional responsibilities under the Act. This is before we start talking about Tusla. There has been a lot of discussion in the House in respect of the capacity of Tusla to do the very important roles the House has already conferred on it. Additional responsibilities will be added to Tusla in the Bill. I have to say I have no confidence whatsoever that Tusla has the resources and capability to be able to deal with the additional responsibilities. Amendment No. 1 also called for an implementation timeframe to confirm the Minister is satisfied that the State is in a position to meet all requirements and obligations. Again, this is absolutely and eminently sensible. The difficulty is that a very short period of time ago I was told that amendment No. 1 is in conflict with the principle of the Bill. How is it in conflict with the principle of the Bill? It basically states the Minister will outline how he will implement the Bill before he enacts it. I would have thought this was a completely and eminently sensible proposition. As I have said, because the Bills Office was under so much pressure and working to incredibly tight timeframes, which is no way to treat the staff of the House, we do not have any opportunity to question the logic as to why amendment No. 1 was ruled out of order. If it was stated that it was because it was in conflict with the approach the Minister has taken to the Bill, I would say that was absolutely right. The Minister has taken a position of moving full steam ahead with the enactment of the Bill due to the fact that the Government has signed up to the EU asylum and migration pact with no idea of how it will be dealt with. We do not need the EU asylum and migration pact to accelerate processing times; we need a competent Government. The Government tells us it is making progress. I happened to see a report that the Department has prepared for a committee of the House, which tells us that in respect of processing times the overall median processing times for first-instance decisions went down from 16 months in 2024 to 14 months in 2025. Bravo. These are the figures that the Ministers have been telling everybody about regarding the progress they have made in reducing processing times. What they often forget to say is that the median times for all of 2024 for appeals determined by IPAT was ten months and the median time in 2025 for international protection appeals was 12.5 months. The two months saved in the median time in terms of the average processing time in the first instance has been more than outweighed by the 2.5 months added to the appeals stage. What does this mean in reality? It means that the processing time from beginning to end is taking longer now than it was when the Minister came into office. For all the big spin and publicity about the progress that has been made, the truth of the matter is that we still do not have it right. We do not need the EU asylum and migration pact to get it right. We can introduce legislation in the House without any pact and without any of this rushed legislation or this debacle we have here today, and with proper scrutiny of the legislation. Likewise, in terms of the enforcement of decisions, the Minister will tell us about the great work of monitoring and ensuring that deportation orders are met. More people were given deportation orders in 2025, whom we do not know whether they have left the State, than in 2024. We do not need an EU asylum and migration pact to gather this information; we need a Department and a Minister on top of their jobs. We do not need the EU asylum and migration pact to deal with the huge expenditure of public money, which I categorise in very large instances as wastage of public money. The truth is that the Department is spending more taxpayers' money every year - last year it was estimated at €1.2 billion - at a time when many of the people in IPAS accommodation are in what I would describe as disgraceful conditions. Who is benefiting? It is the operators who are getting huge sums of money with no transparency whatsoever. This transparency could and should be provided but the Department will not do so, in terms of beneficial ownership and the details of contracts supplied. Then there is the aspect of commercial sensitivity, as if there is competition with the Department. There is no competition. There is no reason there should not be increased scrutiny and transparency. The annual figure of €1.2 billion is €3.2 million or thereabouts every single day if my maths are right. This is spent on an aspect of public expenditure for which the public has no oversight whatsoever in real terms. The only information provided is how much certain companies get in totality but there is no detail on what they are providing, how many beds they provide per day, the locations, who the beneficial owners are, or anything that I would describe as being of basic common interest to be informed of. I do not know if the Minister can indicate whether he will table a similar amendment to amendment No. 1 to ensure there is this accountability. The proposal is that a mechanism be inserted in subsection 2 whereby the Act will not come into operation until he can provide the guarantees we have sought on the operational and staffing arrangements, the resources for the purpose of implementing the Bill, and the measures in place to ensure that all relevant bodies and contractors are capable. If he cannot give an assurance to the House that he will put in place these basic protections, I do not know how we can adopt section 1 and I will certainly call a vote on it. --- 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/2026-02-18/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:39+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-18