International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-19
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

As my colleague, Senator Black, has spoken to our amendments in the section, I will not reiterate all the points. As the Minister has heard multiple times, the key questions and the key issues are that it is never in the best interests of the child to have detention. There is strong feeling that the safeguards are not adequate in relation to the protection of the rights. It is not clear who will be determining these. As the Minister said, the Bill provides for this to be contracted. That may not be the Minister's intention but contracting out is provided for. What are the mechanisms to be used to assess the best interests of the child? It may be the Garda Síochána or it may be contracted out; it is not clear. What training will they have in relation to engaging with children? We do not know. The huge appeal from the Minister we are hearing again and again is that it is not envisaged that this would go wrong, it is not envisaged that the worst interpretation would be made of the powers that are being made and it is not envisaged that the safeguards would be necessary. Frankly, we cannot give the benefit of the doubt. We cannot give the benefit of the doubt because we are looking at legislation that is being guillotined. If the Government is choosing to deny full scrutiny of the Oireachtas to large and vast amounts of substantial amendments - there are 70 pages of Government amendments - by guillotining the legislation, then the Minister does not get to also roll in with the narrative that this is general and middle of the road and we know how we are and we are generally decent people where we all give each other the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of the doubt is lost. We cannot have confidence because if the Minister is applying this approach to the legislation, which is a poor approach that cuts corners on proper process, then it will not be reflected in how the measures in the Bill are being implemented. This is why people are putting forward extraordinarily reasonable amendments in an attempt to build in the safeguards that the Bill should have. This is to ensure we do not have the separation of parents from children and to ensure we do not have children in terror detained for some of the reasons, by the way, that are very weak. One reason for detaining is to determine or verify the identity or nationality of the minor. Is this going to be a fishing expedition? That is what the Bill allows. Applicants who are not criminals, either adults or children, can be detained to determine or verify their identity or nationality so we can just take people in and tell them we want to spend a couple of days figuring out where we think they are from. That will be done in a context of detention rather than correctly, as it should be done, through the application process. That is not adequate grounds or a basis for detention for an adult and particularly not for a child.
I want to indicate now that there are also provisions in the Bill on which I may bring amendments on Report Stage such as one stating "A person shall not obstruct or hinder a member of An Garda Síochána or an immigration officer engaged in the performance of a function under this section." Let us look at that. We do not know who the immigration officers will be. We know that they have huge powers and we have been told not to look at ICE as it is not like that. No it is not because in the case of ICE, members of the public have stepped in in situations where they have seen abuse of power, where they have seen powers used wrongly or where they have seen detention of persons whose names the immigration officers do not even know but where the officers clearly are engaged in racial profiling. Will a member of the public in Ireland who steps in in a situation where they see what looks like, and may well be, a situation of racial or ethnic profiling now become vulnerable to arrest? Will that be the threat to ensure we make it difficult for people to stand in solidarity with others? The scenes we see are scenes that are possible. The scene we see today in a guillotining of legislation does not give confidence.

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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