International Agreements Dail Éireann — 2026-07-01 ============================================================ Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan I would appreciate if the Minister would outline what progress has been made. He outlined that individuals have had British passports and driving licences in their possession when they have applied for international protection. The Minister has no power to do anything about that because there is no bilateral returns policy in place. I love the Minister's confidence that international protection applicants have been following the passage of his legislation through the Oireachtas and awaiting the President's signature. The truth is that he knows there will be periods of time when the system comes under pressure. That is how the international protection system has operated to date and will likely operate again. The Minister has said in the House on numerous occasions that the vast majority have come across the Irish Sea using the common travel area. --- 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/dail/2026-07-01/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:06+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-01