Results 81-100 of 1,683 for speaker:Derek McDowell

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: Surely that should be sufficient.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: Not all of them are.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: I am not trying to be disruptive. I am simply inquiring whether the Bill obliges a carrier to distinguish who is a non-national and who is not.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: Since the first three subsections relate to what happens when passengers have disembarked, does the Minister envisage ship owners checking as people are about to disembark to separate the nationals from the non-nationals and to double-check passports?

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: Even though most carriers do not operate the check-in desk.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: There is no reference to delegation.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: I will not labour the point but I believe we have a difficulty here. The people who are doing the checking are not actually liable. Servisair, or whoever, in Charleroi Airport does not have a liability. The people who delegated the duty to them have the liability and there is no reference to delegation in the Bill. This is unreasonable. One can get into virtually any Irish airport without...

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: My ideology is that the Minister tried to prevent efforts at the European level—

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: He is the one who has the ideological problem.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: There has to be a balance between our responsibilities as a State to operate an immigration policy and the liability of carriers.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: Perhaps it is as well to ventilate some of this because—

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: Indeed we are and I will address that in a moment. However, I want to respond briefly to what the Minister has said. Surely, this Bill is about finding a balance as to who operates the immigration service, the carrier or the immigration service proper. Immigration officers here have a great deal of powers. As Revenue officers, they are vested with quasi-judicial powers, certainly...

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: The Leader is a reasonable woman.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: This is an important point. It comes down to who decides which person is a legitimate asylum seeker entitled to asylum here. We contend that, after lengthy debate in both Houses, there is a complex procedure in place for deciding who is entitled to asylum here. We should not impose on carriers an obligation to make a decision, prima facie or otherwise, as to whether somebody is a genuine...

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: There is an interesting distinction to be made in this regard. I assume the Minister would claim the Immigration Bill, 2002, is intended to cut down on illegal immigration to this country. What he is not telling the House – and perhaps it follows logically from his comments – is that it is also intended to provide another rung to prevent people from seeking asylum in Ireland. That rung...

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: The chances of an Iraqi refugee getting a valid passport to travel Europe are nil.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: American immigration does that job for the airlines.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: It happens at Dublin and Shannon Airports.

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: I resent the Minister's comment that the amendment is vacuous because it is an important point. He is suggesting that only asylum seekers properly documented deserve to be allowed to land here in the first instance, which I cannot accept. He knows better than anyone that we have in place a very complex and expensive system for considering the applications of asylum seekers. It begins with the...

Seanad: Immigration Bill, 2002: Committee Stage. (18 Dec 2002)

Derek McDowell: I apologise for not making this point when I last intervened. I wonder how the Minister squares what he is trying to do in amendment No. 11 with his definition of what my party is trying to do in this amendment as "vacuous". It seems to me that amendment No. 11 involves, in effect, an acceptance that there is a tension, to put it mildly, between the provisions of the Refugee Act, 1996, which...