Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I apologise for not being present for his speech, but I have read it and the briefing note in advance. I will not rehash what is in the briefing notes because he has outlined all of it clearly and comprehensively.

I want to touch on airlines, as a member and vice chair of the transport committee. I have raised this with the Minister, Deputy McEntee. Since then, it seems apparent that most of our illegal immigrants are coming across the Border, if the figures are right, rather than through the airports. I do not know of any airline that does not check documentation, with, perhaps, the exclusion of travel to Britain which does not look for or want a passport and does not want to be subject to a fine. The question is what happens when people get to the other end of their journey or on a plane. There may be somebody on a plane collecting six, seven or eight passports, bringing them back to wherever they came from and reusing them with other people by changing the photographs or other information.

There are a lot of planes coming in to Dublin where we know every single person on them is an Irish citizen or the citizen of another EU country or Britain. On that basis, they are all entitled to be here. There is no issue in terms of checking those flights. I have been on a plane where people were checked at the door. Is there scope for doing a bit more of that?

Michael O'Leary came before our committee last week and said Ryanair is now taking photographs of passenger IDs as they board or check in. It can then say it has documentation when a passenger claims it was lost, flushed down a toilet or was given to somebody to bring home again, which is not the fault of the airline. How would we police the system? I take the point on visas and people being allowed onto aeroplanes with a particular piece of documentation, but not the right visa.

The clue is in the Title. This is a miscellaneous provisions Bill. It includes courts, civil and criminal law and superannuation. Much of what is in the Bill is welcomed by Fianna Fáil. We welcome the debate and the Bill.

Senator McDowell outlined very clearly the sections of the Bill pertaining to firearms. I did not see the television programme last night and might watch it. Nobody should carry knives or large weapons anywhere. There is no need or requirement for it. They are not needed in hostelries, restaurants or the public domain. They are not needed for people who are not cutting down trees or carrying out part of their job. I welcome the relevant provision in the Bill. The Bill also includes an increase in the number of judges, amendments to the Broadcasting Act and various other provisions, all of which are welcome.

I ask the Minister of State to respond on how we work with ferry companies and airlines on getting more data so that we know everybody entering the country has some form of documentation. It is hard to determine whether such documentation is fraudulent by having somebody at a check-in desk look at it. Some documents are high-quality forgeries, but at least people have documentation.

Some may have genuine documentation, but do not want to show they are from a particular country when they arrive here because it has been deemed to be a safe country. They lose that documentation down the toilet or whatever and then arrive here and say they are from a different country. How do we tell the difference and deal with that? That may not be the biggest problem at the moment, given the non-border on the island where people are coming from Britain and then down here. It seems there is very little we can do at the moment to deal with that.

I welcome the Bill. A lot of it is very palatable. I do not want to repeat what the Minister of State has said about the European arrest warrant and so on. I will allow Senator Gallagher to touch on the superannuation measures.