Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Estimate for the Department of the Taoiseach and the associated group of Estimates cover a broad spectrum, as we have seen. As the Taoiseach rightly stated, the work of his Department, as in other areas of Government, will in the coming years and certainly in the coming months focus on and be dominated by the challenges and demands of the ongoing Covid crisis, from both health and economic perspectives. Please God, we have seen the worst of the crisis. I hope we will not be visited by a second wave. There will be a focus on the economic consequences of whatever stimulus will be presented in the coming weeks and months to deal with the unprecedented impact. As we go on, we will have very many opportunities to deal with these particular aspects.

I congratulate the Taoiseach on his appointment. This is my first opportunity to do so formally. It is an extraordinary honour for him. I wish him well. If he does well, the State does well. I genuinely wish him and his family every success in this regard.

In the few minutes I have, I want to deal with some of the aspects of the Votes the Taoiseach says are under his remit but over which he does not have direct administrative control. He does, however, have legislative control over them. I want to focus on the role of the Chief State Solicitor. Obviously, the Office of the Chief State Solicitor is part of the Office of the Attorney General. The Chief State Solicitor represents the State in litigation, including before the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The office deals with immigration and asylum and has an administrative law division. It represents the State in judicial review proceedings on matters of immigration, nationality, citizenship and applications in that regard.

I raise this matter with the Taoiseach because the application of the International Protection Act 2015, which is relatively new, has been a cause of concern for me recently. The Act was to consolidate, in a single process, asylum applications and so on. I am glad to have the opportunity to raise this with the Taoiseach as opposed to the Minister for Justice and Equality. I have written my email on this matter to the Minister for Justice and Equality but I got a response not from that Minister but from the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, INIS, telling me what I had outlined as a problem in the first place. As we have known, we have had various issues with the agencies of the State dealing with complicated issues. It is always a good idea for every agency of the State to be subject to the overview of this House and its Members. INIS is not. One gets the standard reply that, because the House has enacted the International Protection Act 2015, which I support and which came into effect on 31 December 2016, Members of this House cannot make representations regarding anomalies and concerns we have about the processing of applications. The only people who can actually communicate with INIS, or the International Protection Office, are an applicant and his or her legal representative. I ask that we review this. I hope the Taoiseach will consider it.

It was good to move responsibility for direct provision to a new Department responsible for integration, whose Minister is Deputy O'Gorman. Given that this Department is to be responsible for direct provision, surely the International Protection Office and INIS process would be better housed there than in the justice-focused, law-focused, procedure-focused Department of Justice and Equality. We will have other opportunities to raise that.

There are a couple of other points I wish to make. I will give the Taoiseach an opportunity to respond. With regard to Brexit, there will be a lot more litigation in regard to State aid, competition law and so on. It is an area in respect of which we need to have much more capacity in the Office of the Chief State Solicitor. It is a matter that the Taoiseach might examine. I will revert to him on it.

The Taoiseach has raised the Louise O'Keefe case. Since he has done so, I will not overemphasise it now. The State has expended a lot of money fighting it. I welcome the fact that the Taoiseach said he will be meeting representatives from the Department responsible for education on Friday and will subsequently have a timeline for the implementation of redress schemes. Maybe he will indicate if that is his intention.

My final point is on the operation of extradition arrangements by the Office of the Attorney General and the Chief State Solicitor's office. As of this minute, thankfully, we have no extradition agreement with China - and we are not likely to have one - but we do have, from last year, an extradition agreement with Hong Kong, specifically the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. I refer to SI 395 of 2019, signed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, last year. Owing to the new national security law now imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing, it is important that the instrument be reviewed. I ask the Taoiseach to do so. My time is very limited so I shall give two minutes to the Taoiseach in which he may respond.

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