International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

This is an incredibly serious piece of legislation. It is a frontal assault on human rights. It is a Bill for the detention of children. It is a Bill which undermines the right to legal representation. It is a Bill which attempts to effectively telescope the process of asylum in order to deny asylum seekers their rights. I do not think that such an assault on human rights will stay with one group, in that the implementation of this denial of human rights for asylum seekers, as part of a scape-goating strategy, will not then have an impact on other groups in society. This is a very important Bill which has widespread ramifications for everybody in this country in reality, if not directly but indirectly in terms of where we go from here once you normalise the idea of detaining children and once you normalise the idea of diminishing the right to legal representation.
It is very troubling that such a serious move will be done not just without proper parliamentary scrutiny but in conscious disregard of proper parliamentary scrutiny. I am interested in the Minister's explanation as to why this is not happening in a normal committee. I am not on the committee but the committee is absolutely the place to have the kind of in-depth discussion that is needed on all of these amendments that we had such rushed deadlines to submit. It is a bit contradictory because the Minister is saying he is happy to sit for eight hours today and sit for eight hours next week as well but unless the Minister will introduce a guillotine, we could be doing this at the committee. I have heard from the Cathaoirleach of the committee that it was willing to sit at short notice and for as long as necessary. Why not have the proper parliamentary process? Why not go through Committee Stage in committee and afterwards do Report Stage of the Bill?
At the very least as a parliament, it is what should be incumbent on us. It certainly should be incumbent on the Government when making such a serious move to actually go through the processes as they are set out as opposed to try to skip them or partially avoid them in the way that is happening here.

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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