International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-02-18 ============================================================ Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West The Minister is not going to accept it today on Committee Stage. As part of the Minister's consideration, I ask him to consider that he cannot logically say that we do not need it because it is already binding on us because of Article 23 itself, and then on the other hand say it is here in relation to this particular part. The fact that it is there in relation to the Eurodac regulation and screening illustrates that it is there. Someone decided there is a need for it to be there in order for that to apply. Yet, as it stands, when we finish Committee Stage it is not going to be there in the part that relates to asylum procedures. Does Deputy O'Callaghan really want to be the Minister who says that the best interests of the child and guarantees for minors are not going to be referenced in terms of how we are carrying out asylum procedures? That is fine, the Minister will vote against it today and vote it down. However, I would say the argumentation does not hold water. That it is referenced elsewhere suggests that someone somewhere recognised the need to reference it, and it needs to be referenced in relation to this part as well. --- 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