International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18 ============================================================ Mark Ward (SF), Dublin Mid-West I will speak first about amendment No. 2. This amendment simply reaffirms that decisions on immigration and international protection remain the sole responsibility of the State. I have said before that Ireland is an independent sovereign state and should not be beholden to Europe on matters we can resolve ourselves. It has been the attitude of successive governments that we want to be the best in class when it comes to the EU. Ireland's position is unique and it has its own particular challenges. We are in the EU but are not in the Schengen area. We are part of a common travel area with a state that is outside the European Union. That is why the one-size-fits-all approach to migration and asylum is not in our best interests. There are many problems with the international protection system, which have been outlined already. Decisions are taking way too long. Appeals are taking too long. Deportation orders are not being enforced. There is massive profiteering from the provision of inappropriate IPAS accommodation. Fixing these problems does not require us to sign up to the EU migration and asylum pact. Ireland is a small, neutral country with an independent foreign policy. We should not allow the EU to dictate from which conflicts we should take people who are seeking refuge. This should be a matter for the Irish Government to decide. Amendment No. 2 is a safeguard to ensure the laws are made by Ireland's elected representatives and not handed over to Europe. Amendment No. 3 relates to the fact most international protection applicants arrive through the common travel area and yet there has been zero assessment of how the common travel area will be affected and no attempt to agree a bilateral arrangement with Britain. With the failure to prioritise this bilateral agreement on returns, the Government has left the State in an unacceptable situation in the management of migration. It is also time for the Government, including the Taoiseach, who appears to have a particular reluctance in this regard, to admit that, as with many other challenges faced in Ireland, having two states on this island impedes our ability to deal with migration properly. Brexit added another layer of complexity to the situation. It goes without saying that the management of migration will be simplified when there is one state on the island of Ireland. For this reason, and many others, it is time to start making unity a reality. I have raised this issue on numerous occasions. I have raised the need for a secure bilateral agreement with Britain to ensure that those international protection applicants who should be processed in Britain can be returned there promptly. --- 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