Results 18,421-18,440 of 18,738 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: As regards the common asylum regulation, is it the case, as some people are claiming, that, effectively, as regards our capacity to determine what is or is not persecution, all those things will in future be determined in accordance with the regulation and hard cases will be decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union rather than by our own courts?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: Do the time limits that are envisaged take into account judicial review after the initial decision has been made and an appeal has been made? Is there any time limit on the judicial review process?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: On judicial review to the High Court, the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court, is it the Minister's intention to provide for time limits for decisions in that process as well by primary-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: My worry is that we will have rapid primary decisions and rapid internal appeals and then there will be a flood of judicial reviews to the superior courts.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: Finally, we sign in to these regulations. Is it or is it not the case under protocol 21 that they can be amended at a later stage by qualified majority voting, QMV, and that our veto, so to speak, is gone and we are stuck with decisions?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: I appreciate that but I am asking a different question. If they are amended later, are we stuck with the amendment once we opt in?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: We would opt in to any amendment.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: There are a few things arising out of that. I will briefly respond to what Deputy Farrell said, although I do not want to get into a debate with him. Our opt-ins under Article 29, or the options and discretions that Ireland is empowered to make by resolutions of both Houses, are fundamental to sovereignty. For instance, we can surrender such things as tax unanimity, corporation tax...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: I agree with Deputy Harkin that there is a distinction between sovereignty and the requirement for a referendum under Article 29 of the Constitution, but it does not mean it is any less a derogation of sovereignty when the State opts in and confers on other institutions the right to make decisions over a large area of what used to be national autonomy. Some 80% of asylum applications now...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: Has the Department ever broken them down by category? For example, this person had been in Birmingham for five years and then decided to come to Ireland because he must go home otherwise.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: People like students.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: I appreciate that, but if 80% of the 15,000 to 20,000 who apply for asylum per annum in Ireland are coming from the UK, do we send 80% of them back to the UK and say to the UK, "You handle these people"? Is that the situation?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: Do we do that? Do we say that 80% of the 15,000 or 20,000 go back to the UK and we have nothing further to do with them?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: I am starting to realise that is theoretically the case but I am trying to understand the practice. Between 15,000 and 20,000 people come here annually looking for asylum. If what the Minister said is correct, and I fully accept that 80% of them come via the UK, do we send back 80% of 15,000 to 20,000 people to the UK to have their asylum applications dealt with or do they just melt into...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: I can see that. Can I just finish one point?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: I will not delay the proceedings. I just want to understand one thing. Between the indirect UK-EU people and UK people simply with no EU transit, the Minister said 80% of our asylum applications are constituted by people who have come to Ireland from the UK at the moment.

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (1 May 2024)

Michael McDowell: I share with the Cathaoirleach a devotion to Marty Whelan and the other great presenters on Lyric FM. On one occasion, he recounted a story about a three-legged dog going into a saloon in America. The bartender said, "What are you doing here? We don't serve dogs". The dog replied, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw". That always stuck with me. On a serious note, the Joint...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: I welcome our speakers today. There are a number of points I want to throw out there. Are there any of the regulations that anybody who is critical of the entire package actually favours? The Houses of the Oireachtas are being given a job lot: adopt the whole thing or nothing. I do not know about the legality and the constitutionality of this since they are all separate options. Are any...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: The EU resolution is for us to opt in for the whole lot. I do not know whether that is lawful constitutionally because each measure has to be separately voted on, but that is another issue. I am just wondering is there anything where the NGOs could say, for example, that the Eurodac regulation has no particular problems, or whatever.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: EU Regulations and Directive on International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: On the border procedure, Senator Gallagher elicited from the Minister on the previous occasion that, in her view, 80% of applications for international protection were from people who had come to Ireland from the United Kingdom, and this was based on the proposition that they seem not to have gone through migration controls at ports and airports. Does the border procedure necessarily apply...