Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister of State's engagement and I understand there is separate trafficking legislation. I thank the Minister of State for indicating he will look at the question of outcomes for smuggled persons. The international protection process is one piece but I think it would be appropriate, since we have specific legislation targeting smuggling, that we would be looking to what are the outcomes for smuggled persons. It is important for us to know that and to track that. On a wider level, I will reserve the right to bring in an amendment on Report Stage but, given I am concerned about how we measure whether a chill effect is happening, I am not sure how we frame that. However, on the issue of outcomes for smuggled persons, it is very important that we can be sure they are accessing their rights, that they are not being blocked and that the law is not indirectly serving to effectively criminalise smuggled persons. I know that is not the intent and I know the Minister of State is going to engage with me to ensure that does not happen, but this is one of the ways we need to break it down a little.

I mentioned other forms of international protection and asylum. I was not sure how to frame this. In some cases, smuggling relates to family reunification. We have had situations where people have had family members who are very well established in Ireland and who have tried to seek family reunification where family members have ended up in different parts of Europe and they are seeking to find each other. There are situations where, because our definition of family reunification is so extraordinarily narrow in the State, family members can fall slightly outside the definition of family reunification. I will reserve the right to come back on that one. We need to look, for example, at breaking that down so we know to what extent those smuggled persons were family members of persons already living in Ireland, to what extent they were asylum seekers and to what extent they got international protection, as that will give us a better understanding. I will address some of the other issues later. I will withdraw the amendment but I reserve the right to reintroduce.