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

Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

I will consider the issue about the production of the warrant within the Department. Irrespective of that, the definitions section is the wrong place to put it. I will consider it and discuss it with my officials. If it is deemed necessary, I will bring forward an amendment at Report Stage. I am not going into operational detail now as to who would be the immigration officers as it would not be appropriate. We are setting out the architecture of the legislation. No matter who the immigration officers are or what the basis under which they are employed is, whether they are gardaí, Department of justice officials or are contracted, they will all have to comply with obligations in ensuring that the law is upheld and that the human rights of individuals are respected. Looking at the history of immigration officers in Ireland to date, that has been the case and there is no reason to believe that will be departed from in the future.

---

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