International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18 ============================================================ Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (SF), Wicklow-Wexford I want to be constructive. I would welcome any Government policy that will deal with the present chaotic system of IPAS processing and enforcement. However, we should make the decision. That is fairly obvious. Based on our own circumstances on a divided island, this issue cannot be addressed in the present system. The system to date has not been fit for purpose. I want to be constructive, as I was saying. We need to see faster processing of the claims and more efficient decision-making in terms of Eurodac with biometric data and the screening at border checks. I welcome the enhanced screening brought in at Rosslare Europort. I was down at the opening some months ago. We need to see less time spent by applicants in State accommodation, which is enriching cowboys, basically, to the tune of €1.2 billion last year. These aspects are good and we support certain aspects like giving communities back their hotels and community spaces. It will be good if it leads to quicker processing of successful applicants and if it will do away with the trafficking industry and especially child trafficking which is something that existed long before Jeffrey Epstein. It is something that has been going on. It will be good if it means we have the faster return of those who have been refused asylum. We want a system that is fair, efficient and enforced because we have not been enforcing so far. What we have done up to date is not apply our own rules. We have made a laughing stock of the country in front of the world. The whole situation of the passports in bins, which was going on for years, made a mockery of the system. Anything that would deal with that would certainly give more credibility to the Government. An Irish Government is best placed to make these decisions in the interest of the Irish people rather than faceless, unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. That undermines our democracy and sovereignty. The people whose statues are around the Chamber were people who stood for sovereignty. The patriot dead we think of coming up to Easter were people governments saw fit to honour here, so we should be thinking of sovereignty, which is our ability to control our own affairs. Obviously an Irish Government elected by the Irish people, regardless of who they vote for, is in the best place to do that but our attitude has been to be the best boys and girls in the class in the EU for years and that does not serve us well all the time. This State is supposed to be independent, sovereign and should not be beholden to Europe on matters we can resolve ourselves, such as these, as Deputy Carthy and others have pointed out. There are many aspects of the Bill that do not recognise the unique situation on the island where we have an open border with a non-EU state. It is absolutely necessary we advance towards Irish unity but this Bill does not recognise the fact that every day there are taxis coming down from Belfast and Newry arriving outside the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street. People can see it openly. It is something that cannot be sorted out under the present arrangements. We should not be doing all this as a package because one size cannot fit all the countries in Europe. It certainly does not suit our needs given our unique circumstances and we are at nothing trying to deal with these challenges. If we sign up in full to this pact in the absence of Irish unity, it simply will not work. It would be a crazy idea to give carte blanche to, and say we agree with, everything that does not suit our circumstances. I ask the Minister of State to consider that. It goes against everything his party believes in as well. It would be crazy to sign up for the full package. --- 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