International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-18
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Sharon Keogan (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I am speaking on the section. Italy's backlog is 234,000. Luxembourg has a backlog of 4,195, while Malta has 1,415 applications pending. The Netherlands has 63,240 applications pending, while Poland has a backlog of 12,775. In Portugal, the figure is 8,595, in Romania it is 295, while in Slovakia it is 90 and in Slovenia it is 1,480. Spain has 248,780 applications pending and in Sweden the backlog is 5,050. To summarise, the backlog in Europe at this moment stands at 1.3 million applications pending. These numbers are not fluctuations or arbitrations. These are the reality of the system we are now locking ourselves into.
The crucial point is that these very figures are the total European caseload that the Commission will use to determine the future reallocations, the future solidarity contributions and Ireland's future obligations. When we look at these figures side by side, we begin to see that, in practice, the pact means that Ireland, with limited infrastructure, a distinct common travel area and a housing system that is already under strain, will now be expected to take annual allocations calculated not on our real capacity but on the distorted GDP numbers and the overwhelming pressures across the Continent. That is what this boils down to.
These are horrendous figures. The Minister is going to tell us and this country that this will be a very quick system and will only take 12 weeks. We need to be realistic here. It will not be sorted in 12 weeks.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:44+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-18