Results 3,821-3,840 of 15,342 for speaker:Helen McEntee

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

Helen McEntee: This is about the movement of children who are non-EU citizens.

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

Helen McEntee: They absolutely can.

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

Helen McEntee: The difference is that we are talking about citizens who do not have a right to free movement across borders. We have an interconnected police system and the Garda works closely with police organisations across Europe and with Europol and Interpol. When it comes to trafficking, we have significant operations and mechanisms by which we work with each other.

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

Helen McEntee: That is absolutely not the case. I do not think I am suggesting that.

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

Helen McEntee: There are situations where children may be coming from a war-torn country. Significant numbers have been coming from Ukraine recently. In that scenario, there is the potential that somebody who is not a European citizen will be trafficked by those claiming to be parents or relatives. We need to understand and know who people are.

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

Helen McEntee: Anybody can be taken and that is why the Garda works to try-----

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

Helen McEntee: We are talking about people coming into Europe. We are talking about reducing risks for children. We are talking about trying to ensure that children are not used by other people who are trying to get into the country to claim asylum. We are trying to ensure, for example, that children are not being brought into forced prostitution, which perhaps we do not realise is a massive problem. It...

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

Helen McEntee: I do not think so.

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

Helen McEntee: This will not be facial recognition. People's photographs will be taken and that is it. They will then be on a system. Any form of facial recognition is separate and has nothing to do with it.

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

Helen McEntee: Facial recognition will not be applied in this instance. It will involve photographs. If a person arrives and we identify them on the Eurodac system, we will simply have a picture. We will be able to confirm it is the person in question and that the documents match those that have been uploaded.

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

Helen McEntee: Not in this country, no. Not that I am aware of. We are talking about taking photos of people simply to upload to a database that can then be accessed by other member states.

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

Helen McEntee: It will be a photograph as a form of identification.

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

Helen McEntee: While the Deputy is not talking about judges, I will not tell him that I have allocated 30 additional judges in the past year and a half and there will be 20 more in the second round of the judicial planning working group. This is something we need to do, irrespective of the pact. We have gone from 3,000 applications per year on average to 13,200 plus last year and we will most likely...

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

Helen McEntee: I am sorry; we have already provided legal aid to support people and that funding will increase.

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

Helen McEntee: I agree.

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

Helen McEntee: I cannot predict that; I do not think it is possible to predict that. We obviously have prediction figures for this year based on the current system without any further changes taking place. For example, where we have allocated safe countries, the number of people coming from those safe countries has dropped significantly. As we apply much more efficient procedures and quicker processing,...

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

Helen McEntee: For example, just over 5,000 people have applied so far this year and we are coming to the end of April. We know that more than 50% of those are secondary movements. At the moment, we do not have an effective system of returns. The Dublin III Regulation is not working. If we were to be in the migration pact where we would have more effective systems of returns, we could have half of those...

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

Helen McEntee: It is not that they are not co-operating with us; it is just a system that does not work. It is based on a request. It is based on the member state we are requesting-----

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

Helen McEntee: In the vast majority of cases, no.

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

Helen McEntee: It is not working but it is not working for anybody. It is not a system that is benefiting anybody. Obviously, as a country that has significant numbers of secondary movements, we are impacted more than other countries perhaps.