International Protection Bill 2026: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-25
============================================================

Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel

I listened attentively to the Minister's response. I take from it that he does not, in principle, have a difficulty with the objective. He has clearly articulated and identified our objective, which is great, so we are not losing anything in translation there. The Minister will be aware that I asked for a report "Within 12 months". I did not say "every 12 months". Given the nature and the concerns about the International Protection Bill 2026, Senator McCarthy and I believe we should be cautious and that we should have some sort of accountability. The Minister stood up and asked if he was meant to be held responsible. Yes, the Minister is to be held responsible. There is the expectation that the Minister will be the advocate and the guardian of the importance of international law and the European Convention on Human Rights. It would come naturally to him anyway. I have no doubt about that and that is not in question here. It was the intention that the Minister would do it once within 12 months because there is a lot of uncertainty about how this legislation will be rolled out. There are concerns.
We know the international situation. We may have many people seeking to come to our shores in the next few weeks and months, certainly in the next year. There are huge challenges to the world order at the moment. No doubt all of us here are conscious of that and the challenges it will present. That is another day's work but it is clearly in our minds. Along with Senator McCarthy, I was proposing that, within 12 months, the Minister with responsibility, who is leading this legislation and has brought in all these amendments on which we will possibly not even get to speak in the Upper House, would "produce a report". That is important, particularly in light of the constraints on us as parliamentarians in this House today as we consider the Government's legislation that the Minister is navigating through the Houses. Therefore, it was always our intention that the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, or whoever the Minister is on the given day in 12 months' time, would initiate, or his office would initiate, a report on the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. I am not saying he would personally conduct it, but he initiates many things every day. That is a very simple, fair and reasonable request, I would have thought. The report would also analyse the effects. It is important that we analyse the effects of this legislation on the lives of everybody, but particularly children and vulnerable people. There is a vulnerability about most people in those circumstances.
We would include in the Bill the provision that they would receive proper legal counselling - surely the Minister does not have a problem with that - and be treated humanely in detention. It is not always the case that people are treated humanely in detention, including in our prisons. That is a debate for another day, but let us not be fooling ourselves that people who are detained, retained, find themselves incarcerated or for various reasons are ordered into some sort of controlled environment or situation not of their making or choice do not get some forms of abuse. That is the reality of it. History tells us that. We all know it. Therefore, that is another concern.
On the European Convention on Human Rights, that is what we are all about. We are a republic. We have a proud tradition of vindicating the rights of people, or at least seeking to vindicate the rights of people, be they citizens or not.
It was clearly our intention that the Minister would take responsibility and initiate through his officials and the resources available to him some sort of a report on and analysis of the impact of this legislation in which he has every confidence and, therefore, is surely confident will be right, appropriate and proper. I see him as the guardian of this legislation over the next 12 months. That is the intention and I put that to the House.

---

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/2026-03-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-25