International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18
============================================================

Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

We need to recognise that when it comes to the drafting of legislation, we do not set out the circumstances in which the Oireachtas believes something would be in the best interests of the child. We have to allow a certain level of discretion. Of course all of this will be subject to very careful judicial intervention. That is why the drafting of the Bill is so important.
We need to recognise that the amendment we are dealing with relates to the definition section of the Bill. When we come to section 24, there are further amendments in respect of the express provision regarding the limited period of detention that is permissible.
I take on board what Deputy Kelly has said about the reception conditions directive. It is an improvement that the directive will be transposed through primary legislation for debate here, as opposed to by way of statutory instrument, which was an option.

---

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