International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-18
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Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland

This judgment whereby compensation is paid to people who we did not have accommodation for is forced on us by the European Union. The judgment is clear. It goes through case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. It should be an Irish decision whether to compensate people. It should not be forced on us by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Irish High Court judges should not be obliged by European case law to hand out money to people who came to Ireland when there was no accommodation for them and when Irish people, as well as asylum seekers, were in emergency accommodation, including families sharing one hotel room and the like. Regarding people who came here when there was no capacity to house them, we should not be in a position whereby we end up compensating those people and everybody who will follow. The answer to that is that if member states have the right to determine their own laws, regardless of Luxembourg decisions, no compensation would be paid because the Irish people would say that is nonsense and they are not paying people who come here and find they have to stay in a tent because there is no place for them. We are not going to do that in the future.

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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