International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-19 ============================================================ Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South The Senator has highlighted an issue that is under discussion between my Department and the Department of children. Some functions are at present carried out by Tusla; further functions will have to be provided in respect of unaccompanied minors. Discussion on that is ongoing between the two Departments. A final decision has not been made as to what entity will be designated as responsible for unaccompanied minors. The responsibility under the legislation is given to me to do it by way of secondary legislation. Whenever this legislation is enacted, promptly after that I will have to designate by statutory instrument the appropriate authority, whether Tusla or another entity. --- 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