International Protection Bill 2026: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-03
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Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

We all accept that the State needs to manage migration. However, any migration Bill must be grounded in human rights, fairness and the rule of law. It must reflect our obligations under international protection frameworks and indeed our own values, but this Bill raises serious concerns on both points.
I am deeply concerned that key safeguards for vulnerable applicants remain absent, particularly around the provision of age assessment. The provisions are unclear and lack the fundamental child-centred principles required under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Under the UNHCR, the age assessment must be child centred and the use of medical exams should be removed. Age assessments must be multidisciplinary, independent and trauma-informed. Without clear statutory safeguards we risk treating children as adults, with profound and lasting consequences.
I will also mention vulnerability assessments. Vulnerability is not a statistic. Survivors of torture, trafficking, gender-based violence and medical trauma may not disclose their experiences at the first interaction with the State. It is a really normal trauma response to not open up about those horrific incidences you have experienced. We need to account for the fact that people do not open up about traumatic incidents in the first instance. We need to account for that in any vulnerability assessment, and for each person to be able to feel safe enough to share that freely and safely. An effective protection system must provide a continuous assessment and appropriate supports throughout the process.
The limitation of oral appeals to circumstances where they are deemed necessary raises serious concerns around fairness. The right to be heard should never be a procedural luxury. It is a core element of natural justice to have fair and unbiased hearing before any decision can be made about an individual. Particularly in protection cases, credibility findings which determine if an application is believable, consistent and plausible can determine a person's safety. An oral hearing should be the norm where facts are disputed.
Information provision to applicants remains vague. There is no clear statutory guarantee that an applicant will receive timely and comprehensive explanations of decisions, appeals rights and deadlines. The idea that we can make a decision without giving any explanation to the applicant seems to be entirely cruel. People navigating the system must clearly understand their rights, their timelines, the obligations on them but also on the State and, crucially, all of the language must be in an accessible format. In the context of people knowing their rights, I note serious concerns have been raised on what is referred to in the legislation as "legal counselling". This is not a term in Irish law. We need to have real clarity on who will provide legal counselling and what qualifications they will have. Can we now guarantee that AI chatbots will not be used, as was initially considered? The idea we would ever consider using AI chatbots for legal counselling is appalling.
This Bill significantly expands the State's powers of detention, particularly in the context of returns procedures, so we need answers on where people will be detained, what the conditions will be like and what the oversight of those centres will be. If the State is to deprive someone of his or her liberty, it must state those clearly, and also the legal basis for that decision, together with having the necessary safeguards.
On Committee Stage, I will bring forward amendments to these incredibly important issues that are at the core of human rights and are central to our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child because we cannot allow any legislation that will compound any harm to children who have already been through so much trauma.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03