The International Protection Bill is described as the most radical reform of immigration law in the State’s history. It aims to bring Irish law in line with the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum.
However, Opposition TDs are critical of plans to guillotine the Bill on Wednesday without what they say is proper scrutiny of a number of provisions. There are five main points of disagreement:
1. Use of the guillotine
The Bill has been debated for eight hours at committee stage, all in a single session in the Dáil rather than at the Justice Committee where it would normally be considered. Out of almost 300 amendments submitted, just 15 amendments – including those ruled out of order – were dealt with.
There are four more hours of debate on Wednesday before the Bill is guillotined – with debate stopping after a strict Government deadline – and the Bill then moves to the Seanad. The issues and the timing have sparked Opposition anger. Social Democrats’ spokesman Gary Gannon says the Bill will likely be before the courts, facing a legal challenge, before the end of the year.
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Chair of the Justice Committee Matt Carthy (Sinn Féin) said its members offered to “make ourselves available at any time” for as long as it took to “go through each amendment in detail” but the legislation is “absolutely rushed” and “makes a mockery” of the process.
Labour justice spokesman Alan Kelly said there is no “proper committee stage” and “we haven’t a hope in hell of getting through the listed amendments”.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said, however, the Justice Committee dealt with the general scheme of the Bill in pre-legislative scrutiny. If the committee dealt with committee stage on an “orthodox basis” then the debate “would have taken an inordinate period of time”.
2. Legal advice
Applicants will have their case for asylum dealt with in 12 weeks but will have “legal counselling” rather than a lawyer at first interview. Opposition TDs argue this is not defined in the legislation with no guarantee on who provides it or what standards apply.
The Minister has suggested this could be a paralegal but Kelly said the reference to “counselling” was too vague – “it could be citizens’ advice, it could be TDs”.
3. Family reunification
Last year there were 669 family reunifications granted in the State. The Minister is expected to bring an amendment reducing his proposed waiting time from three years to two years for applicants granted leave to stay in Ireland to apply for family members to join them.
The Opposition is divided on this but “we won’t even get to debate it” before the legislation is guillotined on Wednesday, Gannon said.
4. The Common Travel Area
All opposition TDs criticised the lack of any substantive mention of the Common Travel Area between Ireland and the UK in the legislation.
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibin said at least 85 per cent of asylum seekers were coming from Britain through the North. A process has to be worked out with Britain that “when a person wants to apply for an application for asylum here in Ireland, they do so when they move to the island and vice versa because there are flows in both directions”.
All Opposition parties oppose Ireland signing up to the EU pact, Sinn Féin on the grounds that Ireland should be sovereign and should deal itself with immigration policy. Other parties including the Social Democrats argue the pact is not suitable for Ireland because “no other European country has a common area of travel outside the EU”.
O’Callaghan said the Dáil was “Irish sovereignty in operation”, determining “what laws we want to introduce into this country for the purpose of reforming asylum laws”.
5. Detention of children
The Opposition is united against the proposal permitting the detention of children in defined “last resort” circumstances for up to 12 hours and “in the best interests” of the minor.
The Bill has been criticised for failing to define what are the best interests of the child and opposition TDs said because the debate ends on Wednesday they will not get to consider the issue.
The Bill allows for a Garda or immigration officer to make the decision in certain circumstances including where the child is in the custody of an asylum applicant, for the purposes of verification of age and identity.
The Minister emphasised as well “that it can only happen in circumstances where it is believed that short detention of no longer than 12 hours is in the best interests of the child”.
