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

That is a very unsatisfactory response. Speed is one thing but justice is another and justice trumps speed. We should ensure that we have a fair and just process for people seeking asylum, who in many cases have come from the most awful situations possible. While everybody is in favour of shortening the inordinate length of time that people are left languishing in direct provision, a fear has grown as I have tried to get to grips with the Bill.

Like other Deputies, I indicated in my Second Stage speech that in the rush to ram this legislation through what was being smuggled in was not a mechanism that would speed up the process in the interests of asylum seekers but rather a process that would make it more difficult for people to get into the State in the first instance and to fast-track their deportation. The legislation also provides An Garda Síochána and the immigration authorities with additional powers in the deportation of people and for an ill-defined new category of immigration officer to be called an international protection officer to, possibly, replace civil servants. The Irish Refugee Council which has a better handle on this issue than most of us here is concerned about these proposals, as are all other NGOs, as the Minister of State is well aware. They are concerned that there is a move towards privatisation of the immigration process by way of the replacement of civil servants with a type of private frontier security service. That is what they suggest is the risk in what is proposed. I am sure the Minister of State is aware of their views on this proposal. Will he reassure us that their concerns, to which I attach some weight, are misplaced?

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