International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-19 ============================================================ Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel I will speak to amendments Nos. 19, 38 and 49 to 52, inclusive. I first state that the detention of a child is not acceptable, as many human rights organisations have said. I have been contacted by so many people even today about this Bill who have serious concerns. People from counties across the country are sending in concerns, such as I am sure have been received by other Senators. Amendment No. 19 would define "measure of last resort" to ensure that non-custodial alternatives are enshrined in the Bill and all alternatives are examined before a person, either adult or child, is detained. We should be clear, as human rights groups have said, that the detention of a child is never in the best interests of the child. I want to repeat that. It is incompatible with that best interest, yet the Bill allows for the detention of children. Ireland has never in the past resorted to the detention of children for immigration reasons. This has been a point of pride for successive Governments, so it is extremely regrettable that this Bill is going to propose the detention of children. However, if the Government is insistent, as it seems to be, on changing this and for the first time embedding the detention of children within our immigration system, this amendment is absolutely vital. I urge the Minister to accept it. We need to ensure that we look at all alternatives available to the State with regard to how we treat people once they arrive in the country, the process we put them through, and the places in which we put them. The Minister claimed in the Dáil that this was effectively unnecessary because the Bill already limited the circumstances for detention, including that of children, as though that should end the discussion on this matter. However, the limit he spoke about was the requirement that the Garda must be satisfied that the child's detention is in the best interests of the child, which as we know is a fiction. He also pointed to the fact that the detention would be limited to 12 hours as if to say that 12 hours' detention was a trifling matter not deserving of our scrutiny. Simply put, we are not satisfied that this issue is dealt with adequately in the Bill and that is why we are putting forward this amendment. We need to make it crystal clear on the face of the Bill that all other options must first be looked at before detention is resorted to. Amendment No. 38 ensures that an applicant cannot be arrested for the reason of their having claimed asylum alone or because of their nationality. The Bill significantly expands the powers of arrest and detention within our asylum and immigration system, and this is regrettable. This amendment makes clear on the face of the Bill that the act of seeking international protection itself can never be criminalised. It is a simple amendment. The expansion of detention inherent in the Bill is unwelcome and something we are completely opposed to. We only need to look around the world to see the dark places we end up in when migration itself is treated as a criminal matter or when detention centres become the primary means of dealing with this issue. It is not our job as legislators to legislate for the best intentions of the Government or the Minister of the day. I am sure the Minister will say this amendment is unnecessary because of course this is not his version of our migration system. However, simply put, we do not believe the Bill as drafted includes the necessary safeguards to ensure that arrest and detention will not at some point in the future take centre stage in our migration system. We must guard against this. The impetus for this amendment is to protect the fundamental right to seek asylum and to ensure it can never be criminalised in this country. Amendment No. 49 requires less coercive measures where a person is accompanied by a child. This amendment, with amendments Nos. 50 and 51, would require that when an applicant was accompanied by a child, less coercive measures than detention were used. The expansion of detention under this Bill, and putting powers of arrest at the heart of our migration system for the first time, is deeply regrettable. What is more, the Bill does not provide the safeguards necessary for vulnerable people and groups within the system. Most egregiously, as has already been said, the Bill allows for the detention of children. I have repeated this many times, as have many other Senators in the Chamber, but it is a point worth repeating, as this Bill would set a precedent in this regard that had not been set before. In cases where a child is in the custody of an applicant, it is imperative that the child is not under threat of detention simply by way of accompanying their parent or guardian to the detention centre. Where a child is under the guardianship of an adult, less coercive measures must be applied. That is what these amendments seek to do. Together with amendment No. 7, they would seek to ensure that a child who has not committed any crime cannot be detained under this Bill. Amendment No. 52 would remove the Bill's provision on allowing for the detention of a child. The specific amendment deals with the detention of children, which is not compatible with their best interests. Every human rights organisation and expert group we have heard from on this Bill has been clear on this point. This amendment would delete the provisions in the Bill that allow for the detention of minors by the Garda in order to ascertain their identity or nationality. The Bill as it is currently drafted includes the stipulation that to detain a child, the Garda must be satisfied that it is in the unaccompanied minor's best interests. It is baffling that this provision has made it this far through the Bill's passage when the evidence, as heard through pre-legislative scrutiny and beyond, is that this is impossible. We could charitably see the Government's determination to include this as wishful thinking that if we just keep saying that it is in the child's best interests, then it will be. We could less charitably see it as wilful ignorance from the Government. Our job in these Houses is to legislate based on reality not on wishful thinking. The reality is that detaining a child is never in their best interest. It is simply wrong. Ireland has never resorted to the detention of children who have not committed a crime in our migration system. This has been a point of pride for previous Governments and it is deeply regrettable that this Government is choosing to blindly ignore all the expert testimony that we have heard in order to play tough on immigration at the expense of vulnerable children. This amendment would straightforwardly remove these provisions from the Bill, which we believe is essential. --- 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/2026-03-19/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:45+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-19