International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18
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Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan

Everyone will accept that if we are going to have "absconding" in legislation, then we need to have a definition for it. On the point the Minister has raised, it would not matter if any political party wanted to have checks along the Border. As Theresa May and Boris Johnson found out, it is just not physically possible to do so with 300 Border crossings. Certainly, it would not be practical. That is why we have said very clearly that we need to advance towards Irish unity and deal with these issues on an all-Ireland basis.
The Minister was not here for the previous debate. Does he accept the best way of dealing with all of these issues and to provide clarification and certainty to people across the island of Ireland would be to have a bilateral arrangement in place with his British counterpart? It would be helpful if he would comment on that.

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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