Results 1-20 of 47 for immigration speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: EU Regulations: Motion (26 Apr 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...set of new API rules, for example, on those people seeking international protection. I have already noticed some contradictions. The Department has said that API data can be consulted for immigration purposes in accordance with existing API rules and used to identify persons of concern who are due to arrive or have arrived on a relevant flight, including undocumented arrivals. However,...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (19 Apr 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...who are entitled to travel to Ireland under our visa rules, are being blocked by airlines from boarding planes to Dublin because those airlines fear they are about to be fined by the Garda National Immigration Bureau. Indeed, that bureau has fined a number of airlines up to €3,000 in respect of certain passengers. We have had situations where people from particular countries seem...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (14 Dec 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...the ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa. Indeed, we have heard migration mentioned today. There are migrants who are not reaching safety because they are dying in the Mediterranean Sea or being interned by immigration control deals. That is an issue we should look at. I commend former Senator Grace O’Sullivan who is hosting an event today for those humanitarian front-line...

Seanad: Comhshuí de Dháil Éireann agus de Sheanad Éireann - Joint Sitting of the Houses of the Oireachtas - Address by H.E. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission (1 Dec 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...this regard. The President heard the applause for no hard Border on the island of Ireland. It is also important that the EU does not support the creation of hard borders in Africa as part of an immigration control mechanism. The EU, at its best, is like the UN - an example of the possibilities of multilateralism grounded in principles rather than interests. We must not return to...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (18 Nov 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...people die in the Mediterranean and on the border with Poland, and that we criminalise those who take action to fulfil what we would hope for. Europe needs to decide. We compromise on human rights in the immigration control agreements we have with Turkey where Omar Souleyman has been arrested. Europe has softened its cough on human rights breaches, even when they involve such global...

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Report and Final Stages (3 Nov 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...core piece here. There are other aspects. If we look at partnerships the European Union has had - I am not sure where they fall in to it - it has made some mistakes in its partners. Consider the immigration control deals we had in the past where the European Union partnered and trained the kinds of activities covered here, such as the Libyan coastguard which has been involved in extreme...

Seanad: Defence (Amendment) Bill 2020: Report and Final Stages (3 Nov 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...engages in military activity or in these security activities in respect of principles, but that one does not do so in respect of consolidation of powers. One of those clear areas has been in respect of immigration control. The question for us is whether we participate in or contribute to a security agenda which is, in fact, an immigration control agenda. I believe the European Union has...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Smuggling of Persons) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (7 Oct 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...Convention on Human Rights, ECHR, must also apply. This is a core issue and there is a danger. There has been a sense of jeopardy and of systematic efforts by the European Union in some of the immigration control deals that it signed with Libya, Sudan and others, and in practice, with practical measures relating to how borders have been treated, the militarisation of borders, and how...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Smuggling of Persons) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (7 Oct 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...people in respect of a situation where there could be a question of whether they may have reasonably suspected that someone's papers may not have been in order or that a certain country is tired of receiving immigrants. That could be the case in some European countries. There is a lot of interpretative space contained in the "reasonable cause" wording. It is sufficient to say that a...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Smuggling of Persons) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (7 Oct 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...just addressing possession and control of the documents, and that we are not addressing "provides", which perhaps we should include. For example, let us consider the situation where a person offers to an immigration officer or to some other border officer or other authorised official, documents on behalf of somebody else. I might reserve the right to bring in and include the "provision...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Smuggling of Persons) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (7 Oct 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...who is in fact entering a prosecutorial system where he or she must defend themselves as a humanitarian, particularly when that might be the caregiver or the person who needs to be navigating the immigration process. Even the fact of being in a potential prosecution could compromise somebody's ability to even seek asylum, for example, or other legitimate immigration status. Most of these...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Smuggling of Persons) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (7 Oct 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...a way to balance it in a more nuanced way is to insert a different bar around excepting where such statements are made in good faith. I have concerns at the moment as people have had, for example, their immigration applications dragged through the coals because they have made what seems to be a falsity in a material particular. They may have, for instance, stated a certain town, when it...

Seanad: Deportation Moratorium (Covid-19) Bill 2020: Second Stage (9 Dec 2020)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...on the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2020. I appreciated our engagement on wider issues concerning our international protection and immigration system and the reforms that are needed. I know the Minister is very much aware of the need for those reforms and is looking with great interest at the Day report. I really welcomed the...

Seanad: Deportation Moratorium (Covid-19) Bill 2020: Second Stage (9 Dec 2020)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...and the situation here, it was mentioned that hard cases make bad law. I always refer to the alternative formulation, "bad law makes hard cases". There are a lot of problems with our law. The Immigration Act and the International Protection Act both have significant issues. There are huge problems at a European level with some of the practices we have condoned and our relationships...

Seanad: Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (3 Dec 2020)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...troubling aspects for those concerned with civil rights and our international protection legislation. Amendments Nos. 14, 15 and 16 deal with the issue that members of An Garda Síochána and immigration officers are mandated to behave towards those who were asylum seekers but may have been unsuccessful in their asylum applications in ways that we do not consider it acceptable to...

Seanad: Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (3 Dec 2020)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 17: In page 95, to delete lines 21 to 25 and substitute the following: “(8) If, and for as long as an immigration officer or member of the Garda Síochána concerned does not have documentation to prove that the person subject of a return order is not under 18 years of age, the provisions of subsections (4) and (5) shall not apply.”. I hope we...

Seanad: Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2020: Committee Stage (3 Dec 2020)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 20: In page 96, to delete lines 18 to 25. This amendment relates to a wider issue in terms of immigration policy that might be more appropriately dealt with elsewhere.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Covid-19) (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Jul 2020)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...were told, because they had left the country. There are questions as to how that information was accessed. There are also multiple reports of people being asked for their PPS number and being told there was an immigration concern. Having been asked by gardaí for their PPS number, they found that this information was then conveyed to their social welfare office in reference to the...

Seanad: Social Welfare (Covid-19) (Amendment) Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Jul 2020)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... People need to be very clear about the purposes for which information is being sought from them. We know there are multiple reports of individuals being told that the information was sought in respect of immigration control measures or something else. They were not told that the information was being sought in respect of their qualification for social welfare payments. These issues...

Seanad: National Oil Reserves Agency (Amendment) and Provision of Central Treasury Services Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages (17 Jul 2020)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...carbon economy". My amendment is very simple. The amended wording would simply read "sectors of the economy and society". When we think about community development, older people, younger citizens, the question of immigration or the different things that might drive people to leave towns and cities, the concern may not always be about the economy. All the things that make up the fabric...