International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18
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Gary Gannon (SD), Dublin Central

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.

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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