Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)

I want to raise the concerns that I raised at Tuesday’s meeting of the justice committee. What we are being asked to debate today amounts to a significant reshaping of Ireland's approach to international protection and asylum, yet the Oireachtas and its justice committee have not had an appropriate opportunity to properly scrutinise what is proposed before it has been brought here. We are facing three major EU motions, and we are being given no detailed pre-legislative scrutiny, no committee hearings with legal experts, no engagement with human rights organisations or affected communities, and just over three hours of total debate time. That appears to be an exercise in rubber-stamping by the Dáil.

These are not technical amendments or background regulations. These are proposals that will fundamentally shape who gets a fair hearing in Ireland, who is labelled "safe" without individual assessment and who can be turned away based not on their need for protection, but on the route they travelled, and once we opt in, we become bound by rules we did not help shape and cannot revise unilaterally.

Let me take each motion in turn. The first motion proposes a new EU-level list of safe countries of origin. This is a significant change. Under current Irish law, specifically section 72 of the International Protection Act 2015, we determine the list ourselves, based on evidence, our own standards and our international obligations. This regulation would replace that discretion with a binding EU-wide list.

The proposed list includes countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Bangladesh and India, but we know, and I presume the Government knows, that these countries are not safe for everyone. LGBTQI communities still face criminalisation and violence. Religious minorities and political dissidents are regularly targeted. Being from a stable country does not mean one is from a safe country.

This motion risks replacing the essential, nuanced, case-by-case approach with blanket assumptions. It shifts the burden onto applicants to prove that their countries, which are now officially labelled "safe", are in fact unsafe for them. That is already difficult and traumatising and this change will only make it even harder.

The second motion relates to the concept of a safe third country. It would make it significantly easier to reject applications based on the route a person travelled, not the substance of his or her claim. Under current Irish law, we have only designated the UK as a safe third country. This motion would dramatically lower that threshold. In fact, simply passing through an airport in a designated state without ever claiming asylum there or even being offered protection could be grounds for refusal. That is not how a fair asylum system should operate. People often travel through so-called safe countries because they have no other option. They may not be permitted to seek asylum there, they may face discrimination and they may still be at risk, but under this motion, those experiences would be disregarded and their applications could be dismissed automatically.

The third motion relates to the transition out of temporary protection for people displaced by the war in Ukraine. I understand and acknowledge that this is a non-binding Council recommendation but it still reflects a shift that deserves scrutiny. Since 2022, Ukrainians in Ireland have been protected under the temporary protection directive. It has allowed people to live, work and access education and healthcare. Now, there is pressure across the EU to move these individuals into long-term residence schemes. In theory, that may be reasonable but unless the transition is carefully managed, with clear safeguards, people will fall through the cracks. That includes children in the schools, elderly people with care needs, people with disabilities and those still living in emergency accommodation. We need guarantees that legal status, services and supports will not be disrupted simply because a category expires.

Any transition must be led with compassion and tailored to the realities people are living with.

I see deeper issues across these motions. We are witnessing a trend, not just in Ireland, but across the EU, towards outsourcing our moral and legal responsibilities to processes that are becoming increasingly restrictive. Individual assessments are being replaced by categories. Presumptions are overtaking hearings and speed is being prioritised over fairness. I am a committed supporter of the European Union but I am also very clear-eyed about the direction it is heading. We must be honest about what direction the EU's migration policy and fortress Europe is taking and whether that reflects the values we claim to hold in our Republic. Ireland has long stood for a humane case-by-case approach to international protection. That tradition is now under serious pressure. We are told these proposals will make the system work better, but for whom will they work better? Perhaps they are better for bureaucracies and member states seeking to limit arrivals, but not for a person fleeing violence or persecution. They are not better for the trafficked individual rerouted to a so-called safe state and certainly not better for the vulnerable people who have already lost everything and are looking for protection in a system grown increasingly hostile.

We should be opting into measures that improve fairness, enhance protections and genuinely share responsibility across the EU. These motions do not meet that standard. They move in the opposite direction in narrowing access, weakening discretion and raising the risk of injustice. We have not had the debate these decisions deserve, certainly not at committee level. There has been no meaningful scrutiny by the justice committee, civil society or legal professionals. People with lived experiences have not been included, yet here we are being asked to lock ourselves into a significant legal commitment based on limited information and no public consultation. That is simply not good enough.

The people affected by these decisions deserve better. They deserve fairness, to be heard and a protection system that sees their individual risk and does not deny it by default. I fundamentally disagree with the motions because they do not strengthen the system or reflect our best values and the Oireachtas should not provide legal frameworks it has not been given a real chance to examine. We are not just debating procedures here. We are deciding people's futures, which is worth appropriate scrutiny. I do not agree with this trend that is happening at all. We can do infinitely better. It lacks respect for the mechanisms of Dáil Éireann. We have a justice committee that is perfectly able and suited to scrutinising this legislation in a more appropriate environment before bringing it to the Dáil.

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