Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to make one preliminary point. We have been handed bits of paper with substitute and additional amendments. A whole series of new amendments is being proposed by the Minister at this stage and the Bill is being guillotined. It is outrageous that we have to deal with all this while trying to keep track of what is going on with such a significant Bill dealing with people who are the definition of vulnerable people - refugees and asylum seekers fleeing desperate situations. It is unacceptable.

In the case of this particular amendment, the Irish Refugee Council says it is utterly opposed to this particular change because it is, effectively, the privatisation of a Civil Service role. There is no reference in the Bill to the training and qualifications of an international protection officer. Will the Minister of State explain exactly what the point of the amendment is? Will it result in, as the Irish Refugee Council suggests, the privatisation of Civil Service roles and a sort of Irish version of Frontex - in other words a privatised, untrained police force without adequate or suitable qualifications policing a new fortress Ireland policy?

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