However, the Minister has engaged with this Bill since 2020. He has engaged on Committee Stage in the justice committee. He has engaged with us all, as did the previous Minister. Did I want us to opt in to this Bill? Absolutely not. However, the Minister has been extremely fair. It is a massive Bill, which I will be voting against. What we heard was very personal and targeted and it was unnecessary.

The Minister of State is welcome. I support this motion calling on the Government to initiate a constitutional amendment to specify the number of Members of Dáil Éireann. As colleagues will be aware, Article 16.2.2° of the Constitution requires there to be no fewer than one TD per 30,000 people and no more than one TD per 20,000. That provision served a very different Ireland, one that was smaller, more homogenous and had vastly fewer State responsibilities than today. As has been outlined, the State's population i…

I rise today to highlight the lack of transparency and fairness in how commercial rates are handled in large State-controlled campuses, particularly our airports. Across the country, commercial rates are supposed to operate on a simple principle: the local authority levies them and the occupier knows exactly what they owe. In complex environments where a single semi-State landlord controls access, however, tenants often have no visibility into how those rates are calculated, allocated and passed on. There was a rec…

Hear, hear.

I thank the Minister for coming here. I concur with what Senator Ahearn has said in relation to the kindness of the people of Ireland in March 2022 when the nation was faced with taking in Ukrainian refugees because of the war with Russia. Many thousands of people opened their hearts and homes to the Ukrainian people. Here we are four years later, and we are saying another year and looking at the cost of that one year. I looked up the figures. There were 19,000 properties availing of this last year in March 2025. T…

Today I want to speak on two issues. The first concerns the recent development in the UK regarding the law passed by the House of Lords that effectively decriminalises abortion up to birth. Since this concerns the country that has jurisdiction over Northern Ireland, I feel compelled to speak out. We should first be concerned as to whether we are being exposed to a serious risk of opening a back door to unregulated late-term abortions, mainly via pills in the post, through the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland. While…

Hear, hear.

I move amendment No. 16: In page 20, between lines 21 and 22, to insert the following: “ “national reception capacity” means the number of applicants who can be accommodated within State provided reception facilities in a manner consistent with the standards of the Reception Conditions Directive;”. Amendments Nos. 16, 380 and 381 have been proposed for a similar reason. Yesterday, the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, asked us what measures would we like to see included in the Bill. When we discussed an earlier Stage o…

-----people seeking asylum at this moment in time in Europe, and almost 32,000 here in this country. We are the country with the third highest number of applicants in the entire EU. Only Cyprus, which is a front-line State, and Luxembourg, which has a tiny population, are ahead of us. We have more than six applications for every thousand people. That is higher than Greece and Italy, both of which are states on the front line of the ongoing crisis. I hope the Minister of State will consider my amendments.

It is only this month, I think, that we had an individual take this Government to court because it could not provide housing for them. It is not too long ago that we had people camping outside buildings on Mount Street because we could not provide capacity. We had no capacity. One of the State's arguments in the court case was it was unable to provide accommodation to the individuals. Capacity is really important. Our capacity to deal with individuals who are coming into the country is really important. What dignit…

Yes.

Regrettably, I did not put down any amendments on the prohibition of children being detained, but I would like to know what the Minister thinks that should look like, when it comes to the detention centres for children. I might be the only person in here who has ever fostered children who have come through the airports as unaccompanied minors. I tell him that the hardest thing you will ever do as a foster parent is to bring a child into your home who has come off a plane. Most kids I had were under the age of 12 an…

Hear, hear.

Can we speak to the section?

I thank the Minister. It is good to see him back in the House today. I support Senator Michael McDowell. I do not believe this will work, the reason being the current backlog in this country. There are over 20,000 people in the system who are awaiting a decision on their international protection application. Let us not just look at Ireland. Let us look at what is happening in the EU. Austria's backlog stands at 22,530. Belgium's backlog is a staggering 58,785. Bulgaria's backlog is 1,630 and the backlog in Cyprus i…

I am speaking on the section. Italy's backlog is 234,000. Luxembourg has a backlog of 4,195, while Malta has 1,415 applications pending. The Netherlands has 63,240 applications pending, while Poland has a backlog of 12,775. In Portugal, the figure is 8,595, in Romania it is 295, while in Slovakia it is 90 and in Slovenia it is 1,480. Spain has 248,780 applications pending and in Sweden the backlog is 5,050. To summarise, the backlog in Europe at this moment stands at 1.3 million applications pending. These numbers …

I did indicate to come in earlier on my amendment No. 382. While it is technically my last amendment, it is certainly not the least. This amendment, and those proposed by the Senators in the same grouping as me, all confront a truth that has been brushed aside for too long, namely, the erosion of Ireland's sovereign control over its own migration, border and international protection policies. That brings directly to amendment No. 382, which I have tabled and which states plainly and unapologetically: Nothing in thi…

I, too, am a little confused. I want to clarify a point. With regard to this legal counselling, the business of immigration consulting has exploded over recent years. Is this is a legal framework that the Minister is putting in place to make sure that those people who are giving legal advice are accredited? That is what I want to know.

The words used there were "likely to be a paralegal." I am really concerned about that. There are many people around the country who are seeking asylum at this moment and going through the immigration process with unscrupulous immigration consultants who do not have a legal background at all. They end up paying out thousands to these people. It is important that legal counselling is coming from accredited individuals, licensed individuals, to stop that happening. I do not know how the Minister is going to do that. …

Before we finish, I do not know whether we got a chance or not to congratulate Senator Cathal Byrne on his recent marriage. I do not know whether we did or not but I want to extend our congratulations from this side of the House.