International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18
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Roderic O'Gorman (GP), Dublin West

There are three amendments to this section and I think there is an amendment to section 4 regarding the common travel area. Our unique border situation with Northern Ireland poses a particular challenge to how we manage migration and asylum here. I think everyone in the Government and the Opposition share the goal of maintaining an open border there. Understanding how the specific flows between Ireland and the UK work would be useful, as this amendment proposes.
I am less convinced by the argument for amendments Nos. 2 and 3. We have seen over decades how our planet has become more and more interconnected. We can put provisions into our law that say things like the State’s international protection system remains under domestic control, which is what amendment No. 3 says, but we also have to be very honest that migration in Ireland is fundamentally linked to events that are outside our control. Droughts in sub-Saharan Africa, a crackdown by the regime in Iran, a civil war in a Middle Eastern country or an economic downturn in a former Soviet state are ultimately the events around the world that impact on the flows of migration to Ireland and Europe. Our political relationship with the UK is another key element that impacts flows of migration here. In the run-up to the British general election in May 2024 we saw how the Tory Party, seeing it was about to lose power, weaponised the issue of migration here and the pressures we were experiencing with migration here to try to fend off the challenge of Reform. The party basically withdrew meaningful co-operation on these issues with our Government at that time. When a new government came in and bilateral relationships were restored we saw how proper policies could be implemented.
That ability to engage with other countries in an upfront and structured way is hugely important to how we manage migration. That international co-operation is fundamental to being able to manage the flows of people seeking asylum. We have a very clear example of a country that thrust sovereignty to the very front of its argument regarding migration and we saw that in the UK during the Brexit debate. We have seen how that has absolutely failed and how the UK’s so-called embrace of sovereignty by leaving the European Union has failed to deal with migration, which was probably the central issue in Brexit. The levels of migration the UK has experienced have been even greater, in many instances, since it left the European Union but its ability to deal with the day-to-day problems such as issues with small boats has lessened because it does not have that structured engagement with the European Union. As such, it is important when we are having this discussion to understand that while this Dáil will make decisions about the processes and the legal format of international protection here, we cannot just throw sovereignty over legislation and feel it deals with the issue because fundamentally Ireland and so many other countries in the world are at the mercy of international events when it comes to migration. We have to have systems in place that deal with the consequences of those international events.

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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