Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

The Labour Party accepts the need for amending legislation in response to the recent High Court case. Contrary to the Minister of State's suggestion, the Labour Party accepts the need for immigration controls and has a comprehensive policy in this regard which has been welcomed by the Irish Refugee Council.

The Minister of State spoke about the background to this Bill. The recent High Court decision on immigration shows up an arrogant legislative provision adopted by the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government in 1999. The reasoning for this was that it effectively gave ministerial orders statutory effect. This was despite the Supreme Court decision in 1999 in the case of Laurentiu v. the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform that found orders, dealing with immigration matters that should be subject to statute, unconstitutional. The Immigration Act 1999 did what the Supreme Court had already decided was wrong, but in a slightly different way.

The Minister of State referred to the need for immigration controls in the interest of the common good. However, he ignores the fact that the common good is under attack in legislation that undermines the legislative powers of the Oireachtas as the Aliens Act 1935 and orders made thereunder showed. Now, it is similarly found that the Immigration Act does this too. The Labour Party warned in 1999 that the approach taken in the Immigration Act 1999 was problematic. Deputy Howlin, Labour Party spokesperson on justice, said in the Dáil:

The proposal to validate orders which are invalid in law is unacceptable to the Labour Party. The content of all aliens' orders which implement policy must be incorporated into the substantive provisions of the Bill. Section 2 is an unacceptable whitewash of illegality and deprives this House of the power to amend or review those provisions.

His comments were vindicated by the remarks of Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan. She said there was nothing in the Constitution which authorised the Oireachtas to determine that secondary legislation, made by a person other than the Oireachtas, should henceforth be treated as the legal order of the State as if it were an Act of the Oireachtas. The only provisions which might be treated as a law as defined by the Constitution were laws made by the Oireachtas, such as provisions contained in a Bill passed by both Houses, signed by the President and promulgated into law.

The latest decision confirms there can be no short cuts in the legislative framework for immigration controls. The 1999 attempt to use orders as if they were statutes was found unconstitutional because it sought to bypass the normal parliamentary law-making process in favour of Executive control. The 1999 Act was an emergency measure, as is this Bill, and that is not the way to deal with immigration controls. The Government is dealing with this in the same way it did in 1999, acting in a panic to rush legislation through as an emergency measure when it should give that legislation much more consideration. The proper law-making powers of the Oireachtas should be brought into play, allowing for proper debate and for amendments to be put down in a considered way.

As Deputy Costello said, the Government is not learning from its mistakes in dealing with this matter. It needs to get this right and if one wants to get legislation right one does not rush it through without proper debate. If it was decided on Wednesday that it was unacceptable to take all Stages of the Bill in the Dáil at short notice, why is it acceptable to do so in the Seanad? That shows disregard and disrespect for the powers of the Seanad. Senators have mentioned problems with the legislation, as have outside interest groups, and those issues should be properly addressed. I will not go into them at this stage. The way business has been ordered today does not allow me to have effective input into this legislation.