Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Everything has already been said by people who are much more informed about this matter and much more eloquent than I am but I will highlight some of the things that have been brought up with those of us in the Labour grouping by the ICCL, the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Nasc, IHREC and a number of other organisations that have expressed fair concerns about the legislation and about whether the limited time available for scrutiny of the Bill and related amendments allows us to have the constitutionally compliant safeguards it is our duty to build into legislation. The Bill was only published on 9 July, a week ago. That is an extremely tight turnaround. My Labour Party colleague, Deputy Ivana Bacik, has spoken about our concerns as to the lack of adequate time and opportunity for appropriate scrutiny. We must think about the size of the Bill and its potential impact. It is a significant change to legislation that has been around since 1956. It seems extraordinary that there would be no pre-legislative scrutiny and there have been quite limited opportunities to engage on the Bill.

Some of the issues that have been raised with us relate to the ongoing lack of clarity as to the appropriate threshold for the Minister to initiate a revocation process, concerns that the legislation could facilitate the use of revocation in circumstances where it is not warranted, the term "insufficient fidelity to the State" and not having to disclose why revocation is proposed. There are also concerns as to the potential use a future Minister might make of this provision. The Minister has said this has been used less than ten times - I believe it was only eight times - up until now, which is right and proper but we have to look forward and future-proof the legislation. Another issue that has been raised with us is the level of independence afforded to the committee on inquiry and the control the Minister has over the establishment of the committee, filling positions on it and prescribing its procedures, including the circumstances in which an oral hearing can be heard. There are also concerns as to the extent to which procedural safeguards can be circumscribed when issues of national security are raised, such as the exception to the requirement to provide reasons under the proposed section 3(b)(1O).

I will not go around and around again. Most of what I have to raise has been said but we have deep concerns and I echo the concerns raised by the previous two speakers and those raised by my colleague, Deputy Ivana Bacik, as to the insufficient time allowed for us to examine the Bill. It is a very significant change and it is important that we look to the future and to what future Ministers could potentially do with the provision. I do not know whether we have given due diligence to that in this House.