I will deal with something Deputy Carthy said at the outset. He said we take at face value what applicants say. I am conscious that could be misrepresented. It is not correct. What people put down on their forms is part of the information processing, but we do not just accept, because they say they have come from Syria and are fleeing persecution, that they are fleeing persecution. The whole process is to probe that. It is important to say we do not take at face value what they say and accept it; it is tested. Howe…

We know because there is a lot of information in the Department and for a wide variety of reasons. We know individually. If people have a visa application in Ireland, when they apply for international protection we will know they had a visa previously. We have access to the information, but what Deputy Carthy is asking us to do is to set up a process of collating all that information. There is a huge amount of work going on and we have to be selective about which information we collate. Let us imagine I issue an in…

I thought one thing Deputy Carthy and I agreed on was that the overwhelming majority of people who claim asylum in the Republic come through the common travel area. I thought we agreed on that. Yes, we do not have the exact specifics on it-----

I thought we agreed on it. Is he now saying that is not correct, that it is not the case that the majority of people come through the common travel area? We strongly believe it is. We do not have the data he is talking about collating. I will talk to senior officials in the Department about it but I suspect it will be a huge amount of effort to collate information which ultimately will not have a huge impact on public policy because it will not undermine the fact that the significant majority of people - probably m…

I do listen

I do not wish to respond but I will take it on board. I listened to what Deputy Carthy had to say.

They are technical drafting amendments to improve the clarity of the text and correct cross-references and minor errors.

Amendment No. 5 defines the phrase "international protection guardian" for the purposes of section 2. Later proposed amendments to the Children First Act 2015 and the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 will rely on this definition. Amendments No. 13 and 14 are technical amendments that provide for updated cross-references within the Bill. Amendment No. 29 provides for the designation of the competent authority in respect of representatives for unaccompanied minors. Amendment No. 30 i…

Amendment No. 16 is a technical amendment that repeals section 20 of the International Protection Act 2015 which provides for the detention of applicants in certain limited circumstances. Following the commencement of this Bill, any applicants under that Act who are to be detained will be subject to the detention provisions of this Bill in accordance with the reception conditions directive. Therefore, it is necessary to repeal section 20 of the International Protection Act 2015. Amendment No. 17 seeks to ensure an …

It does generally mean that at present. I have indicated this to the Deputy before - or I do not know if it was him - but he knows this puts pressure on prisons. I have looked before but I am going to have to start trying to identify a secure location where detention takes place but which is exclusively for immigration. That may be something at which I have to look. I am not giving a commitment to it but at present detention under the migration laws is detention within our prisons. What Deputy Carthy wants to achie…

If we do not have a system that allows us to detain people who are to be deported, we can never have deportation flights. I just have to be realistic about it. We could never have these flights because people are obviously not going to turn up and ask "What time is the flight leaving at?" The realistic situation is that in order to ensure that people can be subject to enforced deportations, you have to detain them in advance. It is not the preferred way of doing it. The numbers in terms of voluntary returns are inc…

I hear what Deputy Gannon says. I am not going to repeat what I said earlier.

The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that section 28 reflects the requirements of the reception conditions directive.

I thank Deputy Carthy for tabling his amendment to Seanad amendment No. 44. Section 50(a) of the Bill as passed by the Dáil provides for a regulation-making power that specifies the standards to be applied to representative organisations, provisional representative persons and representative persons. I do not believe this particular amendment is necessary. Moreover, section 50(b) provides that I, as Minister, shall make provision for the training of staff of representative organisations, provisional representative …

We are talking about the Deputy's amendment. I have given my response to the Deputy's amendment.

The purpose of Seanad amendment No. 58 is to give further effect to procedures regulation provisions relating to non-entry to the State of applicants subject to the asylum border procedure. Article 43.1 of that regulation provides that the asylum border procedure may be applied only where an applicant has not yet been authorised to enter the state. It is necessary to provide in the Bill for the distinction under the asylum procedures regulation between asylum border procedure applicants and other categories of appl…

The proposed new Part 4 of the Bill gives effect to the reception conditions provisions of the reception conditions directive. Seanad amendment No. 63 provides for the definition section of Part 4 to include definitions of "accommodation centre", "clothing allowance", "daily expenses allowance", "family member", "house rules" and "material reception conditions". Seanad amendment No. 64 proposes that the provision of material reception conditions and the monitoring of reception conditions in Chapters 2 and 3, respec…

Where?

I thank Deputies Gannon and Carthy for their contributions. As an overview, when it comes to legislation like this, I, as Minister - I presume this is also the case for the House - have to try to balance conflicting rights. When dealing with international protection legislation, on one hand, we have to take into account the interests of the applicant claiming they are fleeing persecution or war to seek refuge in Ireland. On the other hand, I have to try to balance the interests of the State because, as Deputy Carth…

In terms of family reunification, on 4 September last year the UK on suspended refugee family reunification. They suspended it in the UK. An aspect of UK policy I have to be conscious of is that if something is changed in the UK which makes Ireland a more materially attractive place for persons to come, it is a factor I have to take into account. It may not sound virtuous, but I want to try to reduce numbers of people coming into Ireland claiming asylum because I know from the statistics that there are too many peo…