Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

As the House has heard from my colleague, the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, the justice budget of €6.17 billion for 2026 will support a robust, rules-based immigration system. The additional funding for immigration and international protection will improve our systems, speeding up processing, strengthening the return and ensuring that Ireland is fully ready to implement the EU migration and asylum pact in June 2026. This budget ensures we have a firm, fair and effective immigration system that will also represent value for money.

Some of the key provisions will include resources to implement the EU pact on migration and asylum for June 2026. Additional staff have been provided in immigration and international protection services. The budget also meets the full-year cost of the very significant staffing increases we have delivered in 2025. We have a 50% increase in funding for the processing of international protection appeals, with an increase of €750,000 in funding for the international protection appeals board. We also have a new allocation of just over €5 million to the new appeals body which will be created under the pact. This will allow us to speed up the processing of appeals in the same way that we have done with the initial processing of initial applications.

A capital budget of €40 million will allow for further investment in State-owned accommodation options. I am delighted to have secured a €1.5 million increase in funding for migrant and community integration initiatives, enabling and improving community connections all across Ireland.

This budget delivers a substantial investment in our immigration systems. We will also deliver Ireland's first ever national migration and immigration strategy. I am proud of what we have done to maximise the efficiencies in our immigration and international protection system.

As the Minister said, we will have a €7.5 million increase in the budget for people being removed through both voluntary returns and enforced deportations, which are an important part of a system that must be firm, fair and effective when it comes to dealing with immigration.

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