I move amendment No. 13: In page 25, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following: “(2) Where an officer of the Minister, pursuant to any enactment or rule of law, performs a function conferred on the Minister by virtue of subsection (1) , the officer is independent in the performance of that function.”. The structure of decision-making in individual international protection application cases has changed over the years. Under the Refugee Act 1996, applications were made to and considered by an independent refug…

I thank the Minister of State for his response and I acknowledge the note he received from his officials with regard to the Attorney General. That is fine. We have put a lot of research into this amendment as a party because we believe there are serious legal questions around this, particularly in the context of hierarchical decision-making, the case law within Supreme Court decision-making and how all that fits in. While I know the Government will not accept this amendment, I have to press it because we fundamenta…

I have had to adapt to the issues relating to IPAS centres being in my constituency for a lot longer than most people inside here. Some did reference going back a while, but not everybody. I understand the spirit of this amendment. I accept there should be community analysis and I will outline the reason for that in a few minutes, but I am not sure practically how many centres would end up getting through this funnel. What I said in my Second Stage speech comes back again. The problem is we have to be careful as th…

Thanks. This has never happened in my career here. There was a lot of fear in the community, and in the community at that time, there were people who were willing to block access to the Riverside apartments, because they did not want people coming. Swing on to 2024, when these people who had been moved into the apartments were being forced out of the apartments, again because it was run privately and there was a profit motive for moving them. The same people who blocked the apartments five years previously were wil…

We will not be opposing any of the Minister's amendments as they are broadly technical but I have to say, it is a huge pity he does not practice what he preaches in relation to this Bill. He was on the total opposite of this debate when he was sitting in a different part of this Chamber - with Government but against it. Once the Minister got the seal of office, he changed tack totally and that is a fact. We can read the record. A paper that is read a lot more in the Minister's constituency than in mine is The Irish…

Yes.

Agreed.

Why did the Minister change his mind?

So the Minister is bringing in legislation he does not agree with.

You do not agree with it.

That is fair enough.

No, we have said our bit.

Earlier I spoke with Jacinta Graham, who is the mother of Stephen Loughnane who is the subject of the RTÉ "Prime Time Investigates" programme tonight. He had a brain injury following a car accident and has been in continuous seclusion in Limerick Prison since 2021, then in the Central Mental Hospital and then in Portrane because there is no residential place for him. He is in uninterrupted 24-hour seclusion all of the time.

I raised his case here with the Taoiseach on 15 September 2021.

Can we have time in this House to find out what the Taoiseach and his Government has done for him and people like him in the past five years?

Not agreed.

I propose to share time with Deputy Lawlor. This Bill is very similar to, if not a mirror copy of, the Bill I published. It even has the same name, but we will not worry about that. The most important thing is that legislation is brought in one way or the other. I could not care less whether it is brought forward by my party, Sinn Féin or the Government. The most important element of the Bill is its timing. We do not have time to wait. The Labour Party has the longest track record on this issue. My colleague and fo…

I move: That leave be granted to introduce Bill entitled an Act to amend the law relating to the recording, distribution or publication of intimate images so as to extend its provisions to images that are generated or modified by computer-graphics; for that purpose to amend the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020; and to provide for related matters. This Bill is critically important. I have just come from chairing an Oireachtas media committee meeting that heard from representatives of …

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

We are talking in a bit of a vacuum here because any amendments the Minister has spoken about bringing forward, either in the media or here, have not actually been brought forward. As the previous speaker indicated, we should discuss any amendments in full on Committee Stage. I also ask that the Minister not guillotine the Bill. As he stated, it is such an important and comprehensive Bill. On foot of that, it should not be guillotined in any shape or form. There are a lot of concerns about the Bill because so many …