International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25
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Sinéad Gibney (SD), Dublin Rathdown

The answer to the Minister's question about how we would do it is that if we are seeking to detain people, we have an obligation to determine whether they are victims of of human trafficking. The Minister mentioned the NRM but that extends well beyond An Garda Síochána. There are supposed to be civil society groups that are available through the NRM and are compelled and empowered to identify victims of human trafficking. One of the criticisms of this Bill going through pre-legislative scrutiny was that there was too much ministerial control. This is an amendment that gives more oversight to the Minister to allow for this as a ground and I cannot understand why he would push back on it.
The Minister asked how we are supposed to tell whether somebody is just claiming to be a victim of trafficking. This betrays the level of mistrust this Government has regarding people in the international protection system if the starting point is always that people are here to cheat the system, to game it and to take advantage of our systems. That is what is coming through in this kind of thinking - how do we police it? Through this legislation and through being a signatory to the migration and asylum pact at EU level, we are placing multiple barriers in front of the right to claim asylum, which is an internationally upheld right. We do not agree that we should be doing those things but if we are going to go down that path, then we have every obligation to protect people who are trafficked. I agree with the Minister that many people do not know that they have been trafficked and that it is messy and hard but that is all the more reason those people need to be protected at every stage of the process. The vulnerability assessments have got to a place where they are a box-ticking exercise. The only way we can identify these things properly is by actually working with people and listening to them over a long period to make sure they are being given the services they need to support them at the most difficult time of their lives.
I am afraid that the questions that the Minister is putting forward do not hold water. They simply belie this attitude of mistrust when we should be extending our offer of support to people when they need it most.

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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