Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I take what the Minister of State says at face value. I accept he believes that these will be civil servants trained to the highest international UNHCR standards. The problem, however, is that when the Bill is passed this will not be provided for in black and white. The Bill will provide solely for the power of the Minister to appoint and revoke the appointment of the international protection officers. Where is the assurance on what is intended? On implementation of the Bill in a couple of months' time, it may well be that staff will be transferred from the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner. That may happen in the first instance but 12 months or two years down the line, if the Department decides to do it, there will be no legislative provision to prevent the outsourcing of the processing of applications. The legislation will not have defined the qualifications of the officers or what is required of them. On that basis, we cannot have any faith in the legislation in terms of the role, qualifications and functions of the international protection officers when appointed.

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