International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25 ============================================================ Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South Can I start by making a political point? The debate on amendment No. 15 has been an unusual one. The reason it has been unusual is not just because it has gone over for over 2.5 hours but obviously, a very concerted decision was made by TDs from Sinn Féin to speak, in many respects from scripted statements, in respect of this amendment. There were 11 Sinn Féin contributors to this motion. All of them spoke about the same issues in terms of IPAS. I agree there are many issues of concern in respect of IPAS but the standard language that we heard from all of the Sinn Féin contributors was that IPAS was about profiteering, that people were being ripped off, that local communities were being upended and there was no proper consultation. They are perfectly legitimate points of debate that can be made by Deputy Carthy, who is well able to make those statements in respect of this amendment, but the fact that they were repeated on 11 occasions makes me wonder what is the political purpose behind this from Sinn Féin. My own view is that Sinn Féin is very comfortable talking about IPAS because of the significant amounts of money that are being spent on it and because it can also be presented in a way that this is profiteering and in criticism of the Government. The main reason I suspect that Sinn Féin is comfortable speaking about IPAS, however, is they do not want to speak about the other important issues in this Bill. I will highlight this point briefly because I want to try to get on with the rest of the amendments here. I know what Deputy Kelly's argument will be in respect of amendments I have put down and what this Bill is. I know the same in respect of Deputy Gannon. When it comes to the broader issues of asylum applications and reforming the asylum laws, however, I do not know what Sinn Féin's policy in respect of it is. I know the policy of Deputies Coppinger, Kelly and Gannon when it comes to amendments I have put down. I do not know what Sinn Féin's policy is. I think they do not know themselves. Part of the reason there is such focus on IPAS is because it is an area where they are comfortable and do not have to make difficult decisions in respect of it. I will now deal with the substance of the amendment put down by Deputy Carthy. I want to make a couple of introductory points. Everyone in this House has an IPAS centre in their vicinity. The vast majority of them operate very peacefully, very successfully and without any trouble. It is also important to point out what IPAS centres are. They are places that accommodate human beings and it is important to emphasise that. There are obviously challenges when a local community is told that a new IPAS centre is coming into their community but that has happened in respect of all of us. It happens in my constituency, near the area where I live and there are no issues in respect of the IPAS centres in the vicinity. There have been in respect of some. Notwithstanding that, I do acknowledge that it is difficult and can be very challenging for elected representatives and local communities if they are told that there is a new international protection accommodation centre opening in their vicinity. People do not like change. They talk about change. Some people are fearful of change but, in general, my assessment is - notwithstanding that in politics we all use the word "change" - a lot of people do not like change and the unknown. That is not a legitimate reason, nor is it an acceptable reason for accommodation centres not to be put in certain areas and within certain communities. When you look at the substance of what is in the Sinn Féin amendment, it is suggesting that there be a community impact assessment before any IPAS centre is put in a community. That is all the amendment requires. It does not require that there has to be an agreement or certification by a community impact assessment stating that yes, this area is suitable for an IPAS centre. It does not require that there can be a veto in respect of it. All it says at the end of it in subsection (5) is that an IPAS centre cannot be opened until the community impact assessment has been published. Looking at the substance of it, what is the purpose of that? Why are we going to have this detailed process, and, at the end of it, all that is required on behalf of the State is that we publish the impact statement? I have no doubt that if that happened and the State went ahead with the statutory process set out here by Sinn Féin, and, at the end of the process we simply published the community impact assessment and opened the IPAS centre, there would be further objections on the basis that we were not taking on board what was stated by the community in respect of this particular IPAS centre. We all know that we cannot give a veto to individuals in a community when it comes to whether the State is going to open international protection accommodation centre there. In respect of community engagement, there is a community engagement unit within my Department, formerly in Deputy O'Gorman's Department when he was Minister. It does excellent work. It engages with public representatives. I have heard many Deputies here talk positively about the engagement they have had from community engagement. We need to recognise, however, if notification is put out that there is a plan to open an IPAS centre in the community and to ask what are your views in respect of it, we all have a fairly obvious understanding of what is going to be the predominant view of people who go out of their way to respond to it. For those reasons, I am not accepting the amendment. I also want to deal with the issue in terms of the drivers of IPAS and the "profiteering", as Deputy Carthy referred to it, in respect of IPAS. We have a legal obligation to provide accommodation to people who seek international protection. If people say that is wrong, they should say it. I do not think it is wrong. It is an obligation upon us that we should seek to fulfil. If Sinn Féin or Deputy Carthy thinks we should not provide accommodation to people seeking international protection, I am sure he would have put it down in a motion. He has not, so I assume Sinn Féin accepts that there is an obligation on the State to provide accommodation in respect of those seeking international protection. The main driver of the number of accommodation centres we have around the country - at present there are approximately 330 - is the number of people coming into the country claiming international protection. I want to reduce the spend of the State on international protection accommodation services. I have managed to reduce it from last year to this year. The budget last year was €1.2 billion; the budget this year is €1.1 billion. Since 1 May, I have managed to make savings of €80 million. The Deputy may say that is small in the context of a budget for this year of €1.1 billion, but it is heading down. The primary way I am going to be able to reduce the spend on international protection accommodation centres is by trying to speed up the process. If an applicant can be processed in six months, for first instance and appeal, all we are going to have to spend is accommodation costs for the period of six months, or maybe seven or eight months, in processing them at the end of the process. That is the mechanism to reduce the cost. I empathise with Deputy O'Gorman when he held the position that I hold now. As he said, in 2024, 18,500 people came to Ireland claiming international protection. That was an unprecedented number. We had never seen it before and it was a crisis situation. As a result of that crisis situation, Deputy O'Gorman, when he was Minister, found himself having to go around looking for accommodation centres. There were tents on the streets and pressure on him coming from the political establishment to open accommodation centres. I am now trying to ensure I am not in the business of opening more international protection accommodation centres. What I am seeking to do is to tell the officials, the first instance people and the appeal body that we need to process people much faster and get people through the system much faster. That means we can get them out of the system and work with the 33,000 spaces we have. It is also a central part of my policy, and I have put huge energy into it as well, in the same way I have put energy into the other things Deputy O'Gorman mentioned, to ensure we get the State to own more accommodation for international protection accommodation. When I started, we only had 900 places; we now have 4,000. I am committed to trying to get that up to 14,000. On the profiteering Deputy Carthy consistently talks about, as I said to him at the justice committee, in 2024, when Deputy O'Gorman was the Minister entering into contracts, he was in a situation where he desperately needed to get accommodation centres wherever they were available. Obviously, the bargaining power and bargaining strength rested with those who had the accommodation as opposed to the person seeking to rent it. That has changed. It has changed in that for people who wanted to get accommodation centres open, these centres are predominantly not being opened. I am conscious there are more amendments and people want to discuss them. I will not be supporting this amendment. We need to get to the substance of what this Bill is about in terms of asylum applications. The accommodation aspect of it is one thing in terms of reception conditions, but it is only one small part of it. It does not deserve the level of speeches from Sinn Féin, with 11 Sinn Féin Deputies speaking for two and a half hours on one amendment. Let us get on with the other stuff. We can discuss IPAS in the committee room any day with Deputy Carthy. I have been down there before and will be again but let us get on with the other amendments. --- 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/2026-02-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-25