Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 14 October 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration

General Scheme of the International Protection Bill 2025: Discussion

2:00 am

Ms Nuala Ward:

We have obviously worked with unaccompanied minors for a long time and ironically, Ireland was one of the best. I used to go to European conferences and I heard Irish examples and heard from Ms Kavanagh and her team because we used to take unaccompanied minors into State care. They got social workers and they were placed in foster care and residential centres. Ironically, we were - I hope we still are, in some ways - one of the best in Europe in terms of how we protect the rights of children.

On the detention of children, we currently do not detain children in Ireland. It is something we are very proud of. It is part of our legislation so we do not want to go backwards. We do not have to do this. There is no requirement in any sort of rhetoric that the EU pact says we have to. No, we do not. That is our decision, as a State. I just want to make that clear.

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