International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-18 ============================================================ Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South On the solidarity mechanism Senator Keogan referred to, we are not opting in to accepting individuals; we are making a financial contribution in the region of €9 million. A member state can choose to go down the route of accepting applicants or making a financial contribution and we are doing the latter. On Operation Sonnet, I am pleased with the Garda national immigration bureau. There is strong co-operation between the PSNI and the Garda. As Senator McDowell mentioned, a large part of this involves the trafficking of individuals, unfortunately. That is a serious offence that needs to be policed, and is being policed, irrespective of the policing of the common travel area. It involves significant co-operation between the Garda and the PSNI. --- 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/2026-03-18/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:44+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-18