International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-18
============================================================

Lynn Ruane (IND), University of Dublin

I will briefly reiterate some of the points made by Senator Higgins. Whatever the intention of what we do here, it is obviously about how it can be applied, even without that being the intent. It is very worrying for me that the State or the Department can enter into contracts in relation to immigration officers. I think it needs to be said on this floor but also captured in the legislation that we do not end up with a system of privatised immigration officers.
I know it feels hard to imagine a scenario here, but we do only have to look at the videos on our phones and elsewhere to see where people in the western world are being racially profiled, especially because of the colour of their skin. What will happen if people do not have their ID on them, for whatever reason or they do not have a way to prove in that very moment who they are? There is power here that would allow immigration officers to detain somebody until they can prove who they are. Basically, we would have Irish citizens or people in the international protection application system being held to prove whether they should or should not be here in Ireland. It is a scary prospect to think that could happen and we should make sure we do not allow for this in this legislation.
We spoke earlier about the accountability mechanism of legal counsel. What will be the accountability mechanism for immigration officers if the State enters into a contract? Who are we saying the State would enter into a contract with for people to become immigration officers? I read an article a few months back by a journalist in the United States who did an investigation and mapped out how easy it was to become an ICE officer. These are not people who are initially employed by the State. It is possible to apply to be an ICE officer with very few checks, with a person’s ideologies or whatever they think not being taken into account. As Senator Higgins said, this is not taken into account in relation to training.
We must be very clear on who we intend to be immigration officers. If they detain somebody who does not have identification and must prove who they are, where are we saying they are going to be detained? How is that going to play out in reality? I also reiterate the point about the need to produce a warrant and say exactly who you are before you start detaining people and stopping people to prove their identity.

---

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