Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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In particular, I reference fingerprinting, which will now apply to children from the age of six and up. The main reason that has been applied is that in some instances smugglers and people who are trafficking or organisations use people to cross borders or apply for asylum. The idea is that by fingerprinting children from the age of six years, we would have a better picture of who they are. Fingerprinting is not to try to identify them as a security risk but to act as a way of preventing them from potentially being trafficked or used by organised crime groups which move people around, create false documents and apply for asylum in other countries.

In terms of the security screening, we have the systems that currently apply across the EU. I cannot say how member states apply their security screening, but if something gives rise to an alert, for example, if someone comes up who has been on a terrorist watch list or he or she has committed a significant crime, something like that would appear on our system, but it is then very much for us to decide whether or not the person is a risk.

To add to my previous response, we have a procedure whereby we can apply to the court to have a person detained while he or she applies for asylum. It is used in limited circumstances and it is where significant crimes have been committed. It is not the intention that the screening will be to identify child criminals; it is very much that we want to protect the children. Procedures will be in place to identify vulnerable people and that will apply to children in this instance. Unaccompanied minors will be precluded from the accelerated procedure but families will be kept together when they go through the border procedure so parents and children will not be separated.