International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-19
============================================================

Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

As the Minister said, that is not what we are implying at all. We know that not every child coming into the State would automatically be granted asylum. For clarification, that is not what this is about. This is about taking into consideration the entire process. We are talking about the question of the suitability of detention and so on in terms of specific vulnerabilities. I do not think this is a controversial amendment in any way. If we are all on the same page about the protection and safeguarding of children and minors, then it seems to be uncontroversial to have this included. Will the Minister explain what hindrance this would have on the process when the Bill is passed? What parts of this amendment would hinder how the Minister imagines this legislation will be implemented?

---

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