International Protection Bill 2026: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-03
============================================================

Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

When we opened this debate we heard figures of there being 55,000 applications over three years. For perspective, there were 122 million people displaced in 2025 and there are 43.7 million refugees worldwide. We only need to look to see the conflict worldwide and the huge parts of the world that are becoming unlivable due to the climate crisis and, frankly, murderous economic policies in some cases, as well as conflict and war, the responsibility for which needs to be addressed.
Frankly, Ireland, as a country with a significant surplus, must look to the fact we have failed to provide proper provision. It is not acceptable for a country like us to say we are overwhelmed or to suggest that the numbers are high; they are not. They are incredibly low on an international level. The real issues are failure to deliver on housing and health investment and to properly plan. Even as recently as the Housing for All policy, it did not include "all" because it did not look at the very real trends in terms of migration and demographics and plan for them. Instead, those individuals were treated as a crisis rather than a part of our natural responsibilities and our responsibilities under international protection. That was entirely predictable.
Parts of the Bill are shocking. The level of power given to the Minister, immigration officers, gardaí and even civil servants replicates aspects of what we have seen in the United States in relation to ICE. Clearly, there is a different law enforcement culture in this country and we hope it will continue but the foundations within the Bill allow for a shift towards a culture that is more authoritarian. They set in place measures which, under authoritarian instincts or drives, could be misused and could lead to us breaching human rights. As we have seen from events in the United States, the consequences when there is this kind of shift towards authoritarianism resonate far beyond asylum seekers and refugees and into the communities and society we share and the tone of the communities and society we share. This is not hyperbolic.
Let us be specific. Section 22 (5) allows a garda or immigration officer to issue a direction to a non-Irish national registered under the Immigration Act, and their children, to go to an asylum screening centre where they have "reasonable grounds for believing that it is in the best interests of public policy". That is incredibly undefined. It does not refer to "in the public interest", which is a term we have heard previously in legislation and we know how it might be interpreted, but simply in the interests of public policy. That is not a balancing thing. Is that a memo, a press release, a Minister who decided he or she wants to take a hard line? That is concerning and unclear. If anyone refuses to follow such a direction to a screening centre, they can be arrested and detained under section 24. They do not even need to be taken to a screening centre; they can simply put into a place of detention, and we will come to how widely that has been defined later, or even detained in a vehicle for up to 12 hours, under section 24(4)(b).
Again, we have seen in the United States the fishing expeditions in terms of migration and the culture of fear that can create. Anyone who tries to intervene in an arrest, for example tries to indicate an arrest is a case of mistaken identity, can themselves be subject to a 12-month prison sentence. When we look at the protests in the United States against Trump's immigration policies we have seen citizens try to protect their neighbours and loved ones as the policies attack the fabric of their communities and here in Ireland we have seen the distress caused, within schools for example, by the deportation of much-loved members of schools and other communities. Are we now looking at a situation where those who seek to intervene could themselves be liable for prison sentences? This is a dangerous situation where we may see immigration officers locking up non-Irish nationals in cars or random places of detention and those who protest may themselves face, or at least be threatened with, the possibility of prison. It would have a chilling effect on the solidarity we would hope for within society.
The breadth of the powers is significant and raises questions about the relevant training immigration officers may get. Currently, the minister can simply appoint them under section 3 of the Immigration Act. There are none of prerequisite requirements or criteria there that there might be for a member of An Garda Síochána. Will there be a recruitment drive to find the officials for this role? How do we know what the training, experience, backgrounds and motivation of those who take up these roles may be? There are so many areas of concern that I do not have time to discuss them all. I emphasise, especially as the Government plans to bring its own amendments, that there must be sufficient time allocated on Committee Stage and this Bill must not be guillotined. That is crucial.
I will highlight two or three other issues. There are huge concerns about the safety standards of the screening centres and detention facilities. The Minister can designate anywhere to be a screening centre and detention facility. Under section 217, the Minister can engage in contracts. Others have spoken about the huge profiteering and issues about the way it has taken place. For something that has been coming for a long time - the protests in direct provision centres began over a decade ago - the State could have had its own better, properly regulated facilities in place by this point but instead we have continued to move towards the private sector. I am concerned in particular around the role of chief inspector. While it is welcome that he or she can inspect these facilities, we have a litany of reports on previously bad conditions in direct provision. These are much more serious in that they are detention facilities where people are forcibly detained and where there may be a profit and motivation in relation to the detention of persons.
We have seen how that panned out elsewhere. The chief inspector can inspect but does not have enforcement powers. Section 210(2) states:
The Chief Inspector shall not be required to give an account of before a committee for any matter which is or has been, or may be at a future date, the subject of proceedings before a court or tribunal in the State.
This is gagging accountability to the Oireachtas. Let us consider our history of detention, the mother and baby homes, etc. Do we want a situation where the chief inspector either cannot be required to or cannot speak to an Oireachtas committee in relation to the conditions they have identified?
I have huge concerns around the screening application process and the fact that children can be subjected to medical assessments on the basis of vaguely defined doubts, including doubts arising on foot of statements they make to civil servants in the Department of justice. The threshold for this is too low. It allows for individual prejudice or misperception on the part of a civil servant to lead to a child not being treated. We should remind ourselves that we not that long ago we voted to put the rights of the child in our Constitution.
I would also question some of the family reunification processes that are proposed, particularly in the context of consistency with the rights of the child, and what we have heard in terms of vulnerability screenings and the fact that people may be protective in their first language. Civil servants will be able to search through the belongings of a person and retain any items in the absence of any clear receipting procedures, even though some of those items may be crucial to a person's application or well-being. There is no adequate healthcare provision. It is not indicated how refugees and-----

---

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/seanad/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03