International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25 ============================================================ Aidan Farrelly (SD), Kildare North My thoughts on this amendment specifically are on the record from last week and, unlike others, I will not repeat them here tonight just because I have another opportunity to take the microphone. Tonight this Government is about to make history by legislating for the ability to detain innocent children for doing nothing wrong. As it stands, at the pace we are going at this evening, irrespective of why we are here in the first place, we will not have an opportunity to debate the amendments put down to remove that provision because of the disproportionate amount of time we have spent on this amendment. I ask colleagues to think about the number of really worthwhile amendments that need a thorough conversation this evening. The time spent on this amendment has been disproportionate at this stage, with the greatest of respect to everybody here. We have gone through it all. I ask Members making a point for the second time to please think it through and let us talk about something that is really meaningful. --- 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