Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am opposed to this pact. This country is hell-bent on giving away powers we have. We hear so many people say day in, day out "well it's Europe that's doing this" and "Europe is doing that". I guarantee that in a few years time, as the rules change, as the EU changes and as decisions are made, as we saw with the nature restoration law, we will blame Europe but when we had the chance to keep driving our own way and doing our own thing, we decided to hand it all away. I utterly oppose that.

As has been highlighted, the UK is outside the EU and can use the whole of the EU against us. I know there is a common travel area but it will not be applicable to that. If you read the pact, if somebody is being sent to another country, you have to guarantee education, the person's well-being, accommodation and health services. There is so much detail within it that it is nearly impossible to guarantee all you have to do under this pact. On top of that, if we decide to make a decision about accepting somebody, there is an awful lot involving family members who will be allowed to come to the country as well.

We should look after our own system here. There is no reason we cannot ramp up. The only reason it is taking so long to make decisions is because the system does not have the resources. Resources can always be put into it. We can do everything that is in that pact without signing up to it and we should have already done this. Over the past six to eight months, many Members of the Dáil spoke about what we should do to speed it up but we have not done that and we now seem to be hell-bent on giving Europe the power. If the Government is so confident about it, it should have asked the people around this country to decide on that because the protocol on opting out under Article 21 was part of the Lisbon treaty.

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