Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am very glad to have the opportunity to speak on this truly important issue. I will make a few general points before I deal with the specifics in the proposal before the House. This is a fundamentally important set of proposals that seeks - I think in an honest way - to address an issue which is of deep concern to the majority of the Irish people. It merits, therefore, the kind of scrutiny and debate that these measures were given in the European Parliament itself with a focus here in our discussions on how each of these provisions will be enacted and the implications for Irish policy.

That has not happened, though. The truncated opportunity given to the justice committee when important national institutions felt that they had not been given enough time to make their presentations was not an adequate way of dealing with such an important issue.

As the Minister is present, I have to say that the approach taken to this set of issues by the Government changed during the European and local elections. It is now a policy platform, it appears to me, that is driven by electoral politics rather than by fundamental principle. That is underscored by the announcement this morning of laws to strip citizenship from naturalised citizens in certain circumstances. The Minister’s proposals may well be well founded, but such important matters are now delivered by media release in advance of telling anyone in this House, presenting anything to committees or presenting anything to the plenaries of this House. The matters now compete on social media with appalling views coming from other quarters.

It is the Labour Party’s strong view that the asylum and migration issue can only be properly dealt with on a pan-European basis. This is not an issue that can be dealt with by ourselves alone. Our party leader said that there was much in this set of measures that was welcome and that we would support. The problem for us is that we have real and substantial concerns about some of the provisions. It is also a fact that, unlike a constitutional proposal, the Government has not spelled out how we will legislate for each of these proposals. The Oireachtas is being asked to accept all in a single vote and await the detailed specific legislative provisions later.

Like every other Member, I have seen in my constituency of Wexford the welcome afforded to asylum seekers as well as Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s tyranny. In every part of my county, communities, clubs, schools and individuals have done extraordinary things to make people welcome, to ease their burdens and to support integration, but that significant effort often goes unreported.

As the Minister told the House, opting into the pact will mean the full repeal of the International Protection Act 2015, which we introduced while in government. It will be replaced by as yet unseen legislation, with the Government to publish an implementation plan by the end of the year and the law to come into effect in July 2026. We have a number of concerns about, for example, the asylum procedure regulation, especially the Border procedure, which creates the fiction of non-entry, a situation where an asylum seeker will be physically present in the State but have no legal entitlement to actually enter the State or to be recognised as being here.

What are the Government’s plans in respect of detention? The nature and character of detention should be known to us in specific detail before this House votes. God knows, we have all vented our views on how those detention centres apply in other parts of Europe and, most especially, on the Mexico-US border. I do not believe for one minute that anything like that is envisaged for here, but what is intended should be spelled out so that we all can have confidence.

We also need to be specific about what the UNHCR has said. Unfortunately, I do not have time to go into the details, but the UNHCR is asking for specific guarantees on matters of fundamental rights and importance.

These are complex and challenging issues. I agree with Ministers that there is no simple or simplistic solution and I know that an agreed EU framework is not an easy thing to achieve, but I had hoped that the same care would be taken by the Government in explaining in detail and hearing the views of this House rather than showing us a fait accompliand telling us we could have a few hours to vent our views, but nothing would change and we would have to vote yea or nay on a comprehensive set of difficult and challenging proposals.

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