International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18 ============================================================ Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan The Minister has indicated that he is going to bring forward a definition of "legal counselling", but I have to say I have no sense from what he has said of what that definition will mean. He mentioned amendment No. 8 and the language in the directive. If it was as simple as taking the definition in its entirety, I presume it would be in place by now. To be clear, the amendment before us, amendment No. 7, does not limit legal counselling to legal advice from a practising solicitor. It also refers to "a person employed by the Legal Aid Board who is authorised to provide legal advice or representation". The Minister might inform the House of other avenues or other places where legal advice, legal support or counselling could be provided, but he has to tell us where that is. When you leave the front gates of Leinster House, the chances are that someone is going to give you legal advice in some regard. I know people who have lost their homes because they took legal advice from the wrong fella sitting at the bar who told them not to recognise the court, to cite common law from the 1500s, or whatever the case may be. There is a difference between getting legal advice and getting sound, solid legal advice. Here is the other point. The Minister mentioned the different stages. Of course, there might be different responsibilities on him depending on those stages. I remind him of something that is clearly shown by the figures for processing times that we outlined earlier. He is very quick to tell everybody that the median processing time at first instance has been reduced by two months, but not so quick to tell people that the IPAT appeals time is taking two and a half months extra than the year before. I presume, first of all, that the IPAT process is more expensive to the State. It would be helpful if the Minister could give us an indication of what proportion of those who appealed in 2025 - I have not got the figures yet - were successful at IPAT stage. For those who are ultimately successful, it would be better if they were successful at first stage. You want to get to a point with any system that has an appeals mechanism where a small minority of cases are appealed because there is trust in the system itself. The more robust the first-instance process is and the more it is upheld at appeal stage, the better. It is also more likely to happen if people are well informed on how they move forward. I want clarification before I decide whether to press this amendment. The Minister said he is bringing forward another amendment. What is that amendment going to say? I am not looking for it word for word, but what is the context of it going to be? As members of the justice committee, I do not think we would be doing our job if we did not insist on the inclusion of a definition of "legal counselling". I agree with Deputy Kelly that "legal counselling" means nothing to people who know a lot more about law and legal matters than I do. I have to trust their judgment. When representative organisations of legal practitioners are coming before the Oireachtas justice committee to say they do not know what "legal counselling" means, it is a big problem. When that is the case, you either get rid of the term "legal counselling" or you put in a definition that is easily understood to everybody. I do not believe we would be doing our job as members of the justice committee if we were to disregard what we were told during the pre-legislative scrutiny on the general scheme of the Bill. We were told by organisations representing the interests of those seeking international protection, by people in the legal profession and by experts on areas of migration who just want to ensure we have a legislative framework that actually works that this is a big problem. We need to fix it. The Minister said he will bring forward a definition but we need clarity before we leave this amendment here today. --- 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