Gary Gannon
Dublin Central · Social Democrats · Ireland
“I will talk about that in a couple of minutes but before I do I want to come back to some of the things the Minister of State said in his opening speech, particularly the last paragraph.”
“It will create a scenario where vulnerable people will simply not be able to get up their street for potentially three days because there will be a multitude of different providers steaming up these streets, which were never created for such large vehicles.”
“Those things should not be in competition with each other. The remunicipalisation of waste is going to cost money. That is a simple fact, but public services often should operate at a loss.”
“He engaged with the evidence and with stakeholders and came to the same determination, namely, that what we have at present for waste management services, not only in Dublin but nationally, is no longer tolerable. It has led to a system that is clearly not efficient or not suitable for the purpose intended.”
“Does the Tánaiste recognise the scale of the chaos in our criminal justice system at the moment? Thousands of cases have been adjourned. Victims will await justice. Backlogs are building. We now have habeas corpus cases taking place in the High Court. The Minister referenced my flowery language.”
“I want to acknowledge Deputy Sherlock for her work in bringing forward this Bill. We in the Social Democrats will be supporting it. It is a shame that the Minister of State is not willing to engage further than to simply vote it down on the promise that a review will be released in an unspecified time.”
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“However, the Minister has already signalled his intention of a three-year wait, financial requirements and more hurdles, delays and suffering for people who have already endured enough. Some 669 people availed of that scheme last year. They were, without question, wives, husbands and children and, in the case of unaccompanied minors, they were a brother, sister or parent. Siblings accounted for 45 people. That is where the Minister has chosen to focus his attention. There are so many aspects of this Bill that are cruel. We will bring forward amendments. The Minister is offering collaboration. We have yet to see if that will come to pass.”
“In the area of family reunification, I will speak about how this Bill has been sold and how the Minister has used family reunification as a distraction. It makes up a tiny fraction of protection applications yet it is being treated like a central problem. There is no evidence of rising numbers. In fact, applications fell by 31% last year but still the Minister has chosen to focus the public debate here, manufacturing a crisis that does not exist at all. Worse still, he has deliberately conflated refugee family reunification, which is a basic right in international and Irish law, with other reunification migration schemes. The Bill does not set out the changes. It simply refers back to the pact and we are told the rest will come by amendment.”
“Drills such as medical legal assessments, which are essential for certain claims, are already beyond existing capacity unless resourced properly. The justice committee's report endorsed these concerns and recommended that screening centres be adequately resourced, with proper access to healthcare, and that health checks should go beyond a one-off examination and should allow for follow-up when necessary. In other words, people tasked with delivering these evaluations said they cannot do what the Bill expects without major investment and planning, yet this Bill offers neither clarity nor commitment on funding, staffing or integration with existing public services. The Government's text is entirely silent on how those crucial health assessments will be delivered in practice.”
“So many of these assessments are mandatory under EU law. They need to be resourced adequately to be in any way meaningful. The Bill significantly expands mandatory medical and vulnerability assessments, as required under the EU pact, but it gives very little clarity on how the State will actually deliver those assessments. During the Oireachtas joint committee's pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme, front-line healthcare representatives warned that the current system does not have the capacity to cope with the scale of clients and accelerated timelines envisoned by the new legislation. Safetynet's evidence, grounded in daily clinical practice, showed that within guaranteed access to healthcare professionals, including for vulnerability and medical checks, this Bill risks leaving both physical and mental health needs unaddressed.”
“For many applicants, especially those with trauma or limited documentation, an oral hearing is their only real chance to explain their case in person, respond to doubts, clarity and misunderstandings, and actually be heard. Without that, the process risks becoming mechanical, impersonal and prone to error. At the same time, appeals are not automatically suspended for all applicants. People may be removed unless they successfully make a separate request to remain. In a system this complex, with weakened access to legal advice, again, that is never a safeguard. We are also discussing all of these vast sweeping changes in the context of a system bursting at the seams that has been left without adequate staffing and resources for years. How exactly will all these enormous new measures be funded?”
“At the very least, we should expect that these children are visible, protected and properly recognised in every part of our statutory framework. This Bill does not meet that standard, and no amount of rushed implementation excuses that failure. This Bill completely reshapes the appeals systems, embedding a presumption against oral hearings and vastly expanding accelerated border procedures. While I do acknowledge changes since the general scheme such that appeals officers may order an oral hearing where necessary, which is a modest improvement on the general scheme, this appears to remain discretionary. This discretion matters. The removal of a guaranteed oral hearing significantly weakens the fairness of the process.”
“We are talking about one of the most vulnerable cohorts in the international protection system yet, as drafted, this Bill makes them even more vulnerable because the safeguards promised in the EU pact for the best interests of the child have not been transposed. There are unresolved concerns about age assessment, compressed timelines and a lack of clarity on who even makes these determinations. There is a real risk that children may be wrongly assessed as adults and routed into accelerated or border procedures. Once that happens, the consequences are immediate and severe. They include loss of child-specific protections, exposures to detention and a real risk of removal before errors can be corrected.”
“There is no explicit statutory obligation to investigate deaths or serious harm, there is no power to initiate civil proceedings, and the Minister retains the power to redact reports before they are laid before the House. That is not robust oversight. Only weeks ago, the Inspector of Prisons raised strikingly similar concerns about the erosion of real independence and transparency in our prison system, where inspections are limited, reports are delayed and access is controlled. That is a clear pattern. This Government wants the appearance of accountability without any of the inconvenience that comes with it. When it comes to children and minors, especially those arriving alone, the Bill remains deeply flawed.”
“The Bill establishes an independent monitoring mechanism and a chief inspector of asylum border procedures. In principle, that is welcome but independence is not achieved by branding. A reading of the Bill confirms serious concerns about the mechanism's independence, scope and effectiveness. The chief inspector is appointed by the Government and can be removed where, in the opinion of Government, that is in the best interest of the State. That standard does not apply to genuinely independent oversight bodies in this country because real oversight requires independence from the Executive, not dependence on it. Worse still, the chief inspector's remit is narrowly confined to designated border facilities.”
“On the principle, that line has never been crossed before and the Ombudsman for Children has said the detention of a child due to their migration status can never be justified. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is clear that it is always a violation of rights and is never in a child's best interest. The EU migration pact sets minimum standards but it does not require us to detain children. It also does not stop us from going further to protect them. That was a choice. The Minister chose to cross a line this country has always refused to cross. He chose to remove the prohibition on child detention from our law and replace it with legal permission. At a time when the world is watching in horror the detention of school children at borders in the United States, our Government is choosing to make that possible here.”
“Concerns have been raised about people with serious medical needs, the lack of clarity around inspection regimes and the potential use of inappropriate locations. If the State is to deprive people of their liberty, it has a legal obligation to spell out in primary legislation the legal basis, conditions and safeguards. This Bill does not do that. It gives the State more power first and promises clarity later. That is not how deprivation of liberty should ever be legislated for. What is most disturbing is what this Bill does in relation to children. For the first time in Irish law, it allows a child to be detained because of their migration status. Yes, there has been a slight improvement on the general scheme but only because the time limit is now 12 hours.”
“The notion that a vulnerable person at the outset of a protection process could be guided - or misguided - by an automated system with no legal training requirements, professional accountability or statutory safeguards feels dystopian rather than protective. In the Minister's response, I would like him to confirm if the potential for the use of artificial intelligence is being left open. Is that why legal counselling remains undefined? When it comes to detention, we have known since pre-legislative scrutiny on the Bill how significantly it expands the State's detention powers, including in the context of border and return procedures. This Bill confirms what stakeholders have warned for months. It remains vague on where and under what conditions people will be detained and what inspection and oversight their detention will be subject to.”
“Today, thanks to incredible journalism, Shamim Malekmian at the Dublin Inquirer found, through a freedom of information request, that officials were actively considering using chatbots and digital tools to deliver this undefined legal counselling. There is no better example of stripping away the humanity of the process than potentially using chatbots. We are talking about people fleeing persecution, trauma or war arriving to a country they believe will treat them with care and being met, not by a solicitor or interpreter, not even by a trained caseworker, but, potentially, by an AI chatbot. That should alarm us all.”
“To go into the substance of that, in the area of legal counselling one of the most consistent and serious criticism raised during pre-legislative scrutiny concerned access to legal advice and representation. The general scheme repeatedly referred to "legal counselling". The Bill defines "legal assistance" and "legal representation", yet "legal counselling" is left almost entirely undefined. It is referenced once but explained nowhere. That is a choice. Legal counselling is not a concept recognised in Irish law. There is no clarity on who provides it, what standards apply, what qualifications are required or what recourse exists when it fails.”
“The International Protection Bill is needed to transpose the EU migration asylum pact but let us not rewrite history. The Government made a choice to opt in. The Social Democrats voted against that decision, not because there was not an urgent need for reform in our international protection system but because we had serious concerns about the human rights safeguards, the impact on the common travel area and Ireland rushing into alignment with an EU system, all while our own system is so deeply broken. Almost two years later, none of those issues have been resolved. The question is whether this Bill builds a system that is lawful, rights compliant and capable of being trusted. On that test, it does not just fall short but fails completely.”
“We are debating a Bill that will reshape how Ireland treats people at their most vulnerable and we are doing it in the shadow of a system so broken that the courts have had to intervene. In 2024, the High Court found that the Government had breached its basic human rights obligations by failing to provide even minimal accommodation to people seeking protection. That decision has since been overturned by the Court of Appeal but the matter is now before the Supreme Court. The question of whether the State breached the fundamental right to dignity is still unresolved at the highest level of our justice system. While that question hangs in the balance, the Minister has brought forward a Bill that doubles down on a system that is already broken and found wanting.”
“That is to name but a few of the issues, and I will come back to each of them in more detail. These are not minor oversights. They are the core safeguards of the Bill, which are now being promised through later amendments. Amendments that will reshape major parts of the Bill are being withheld until Committee Stage when they will face minimal scrutiny, if any. The Minister presented those omissions almost as an invitation for us to collaborate but I do not believe that for a second. It just looks like homework that was left undone. This is one of the most consequential Bills in decades and we are being asked to pass it through our legislative process in pieces and without the transparency and accountability it demands. That is insulting.”
“Those were laid out in detail whereas the rest of the detail in the Bill was not. That was not a tactical omission. Now, in a rush to transpose it by June, we have a Bill that is still riddled with gaps and key protections are still missing or, at best, vague. It leaves the best interests of the child assessments undefined. It keeps legal counselling deliberately ambiguous. It creates an independent monitoring mechanism the Minister can control. There is no clarity on how medical vulnerability assessments will be carried out or by whom, even though they are mandatory under the pact. On family reunification, the Bill refers vaguely back to the pact. All the while, we have the Minister signalling his intention to restrict it further, despite not seeming to know how many people came through the family reunification process last year.”
“For the past year, every time I or anyone else raised the failures of our current protection system, the answer, whether from the Minister for justice or other Ministers, has always been the same. It is that the International Protection Bill is coming and we should wait it because it will fix everything. This Bill has been used as a deflection to say real reforms were on the way and we just had to hold tight so the Minister could get it right. At pre-legislative scrutiny, vital heads of Bill were missing and we were told the full Bill would arrive by the end of 2025. We did not get it until last Thursday, nine days after the Minister's press release indicating he had just published it. However, we got conversations with details of restrictions on refugee family reunification.”
“There is a world in which this Bill could have been a turning point. This was potentially an opportunity to build an international protection system that would put dignity, fairness, care and, yes, efficiency at the heart of how we treat people who come to our country seeking protection. We had one such vision. We had the Catherine Day report, which stated we should move away from privatisation, build public, not-for-profit accommodation and build trust. We had a chance to honour that. Instead of seizing the opportunity to deliver a protection system grounded in compassion and rights, the Minister has produced legislation that goes further and harder than the EU pact ever required. He has done so at the expense of human dignity. The way in which this Bill has been brought forward adds insult to that injury.”
“If we are confident in the framework, then confidence should be accommodated by clarity, clear evidence of effectiveness, clear explanation of how rights are protected once data leaves EU systems, and clear reassurances of what is lawful today will continue to be justified tomorrow, particularly as technology and analytical capacity evolve. Public trust in law enforcement does not rest on secrecy or scale; it should rest on restraint, transparency and proportionality. Those principles should guide how we assess measures like this, even when they are presented as technical and even when the objectives are ones we will share.”
“Taken together, however, these measures expand the reach of surveillance gradually, often without sustained public debate. Again, that is not an argument against co-operation but an argument for vigilance. There is also a democratic point here. Motions of this kind are often framed as routine but, once adopted, they become binding. That makes it all the more important that Members use this moment to place concerns and questions on the record, rather than treating the vote as simply a formality. The Social Democrats will not oppose this motion but we are approaching it with the required level of scepticism.”
“Outcomes are difficult to isolate and success is often measured in contribution, rather than in clear causation. That is not a criticism; it is just part of reality. However, it means legislators are entitled to ask whether bulk data collection remains justified as a generalised tool, rather than something more targeted and intelligence-led. This question becomes more important in light of the direction of travel in European case law. Courts have repeatedly cautioned against general and indiscriminate data collection. While PNR has not been struck down, it exists in a narrowing legal space, one in which necessity and proportionality must be continuously justified, not simply assumed. My concern is not specific to Switzerland; it is about accumulation. Each individual opt-in looks modest and technical.”
“That fact alone places responsibility on the House to ask questions about necessity and proportionality. We are told correctly that safeguards exist, that the agreement limits processing to terrorism and serious crime and restricts the use of sensitive data. It provides for depersonalisation oversight by independent authorities and judicial or equivalent authorisation for onward disclosure. Those protections absolutely matter and should be acknowledged. However, safeguards on paper are not the end of a conversation; they should be the starting point. European institutions acknowledge that assessing the effectiveness of PNR systems is not straightforward. The Commission's review described PNR as contributing to investigation, while also conceding that the data can be inconsistent.”
“I accept the basic premise that co-operation between states is essential in tackling terrorism and serious organised crime. I also accept that Switzerland occupies a particular position, participating in Schengen co-operation while not being bound by the EU passenger name record directive in the same way as member states. I understand why an agreement is proposed and Ireland is being asked to exercise its opt-in under Protocol 21. However, understanding the rationale is not the same as switching off scrutiny. Passenger name record data is extensive. It includes not just names and flight numbers, but patterns of movement, payment details and associations. It is bulk data relating to the vast numbers of people who are not suspected of any offence.”
“The House is being asked to approve this opt-in against a backdrop where European courts have repeatedly warned against general and indiscriminate data collection, where EU-level reviews accept the effectiveness of PNR is difficult to measure with precision and where the legal justification for these systems depends on continuous demonstration of necessity and proportionality. While the motion is presented as technical, it is certainly not neutral in its effect. Once adopted, it extends the reach of a surveillance framework beyond the Union to a third country and does so in a way that is legally binding on the State. That does not necessarily mean it is wrong, but it does mean it deserves more than a cursory nod through.”
“The motion before us asks the Dáil to decide whether Ireland should exercise its opt-in, under Protocol 21, to participate in an EU agreement governing the transfer of passenger name record data between the European Union and Switzerland, for the purposes of counterterrorism and serious crime. Obviously, this is a decision that matters, not because co-operation with Switzerland is in any way controversial on its own but because passenger name record systems are, by design, a form of bulk data processing. They apply to the entire travelling populations, not solely to people suspected of an offence.”
“It is freezing, and there are people with disabilities who are making choices between heating, eating and medical equipment. There is a requirement for urgency in how we approach this because it is not reflective of a modern republic when we ask people who are already vulnerable to experience hardship that none of us across the Chamber would ourselves ever have to face.”
“There seems to be no limit to how far this Government is willing to go when it comes to making life harder for people with disabilities, whether that be through administrative decisions, quiet policy choices or simple delay. That is how inequality grows, quietly and predictably, budget after budget. We are often told in this House, when we bring forward solutions, whether it is housing, infrastructure, policing or school places, that the issue is not that simple, that things take time, legislation has to change and that a system needs to catch up. However, the motion we bring forward today is literally that simple. There are people with disabilities who live in households they cannot afford to heat. We are in the throes of winter.”
“None of these are optional. All of them cost money. Budget 2026 stripped away cost-of-living supports, leaving disabled people up to €1,400 worse off. The Government knew the cost of disability was not addressed and chose to proceed anyway. It made a judgment, and today we are asking it to reflect on that decision. It is shameful that we are even debating this in such a wealthy country. Last week, we were talking about the fall-out and anxiety faced by thousands of carers opening letters warning them that they may now owe tax. This week, we are debating whether people with disabilities should simply be able to heat their homes. That says everything about who we keep asking to pay the price.”
“If you are disabled, you are more likely to struggle to make ends meet. You are more likely to face barriers in accessing housing, transport, work and education. You are more likely to be pushed to the margins and told to wait. We know from the State's own research that the cost of disability can swallow more than half of a household's disposable income. The cost can rise even higher for people with severe limitations. When you strip that cost out, poverty rates for disabled households explode. These are not marginal pressures. They are structural, relentless and exhausting for those who are forced to experience them. Disabled households carry costs most of us will never have to think about, such as the costs of medical equipment that has to stay powered, assistive technology, accessible transport, modified homes and ongoing care.”
“Right now, people with disabilities are being forced into decisions that no one in this Chamber would accept for themselves. They have to choose between heating and food, medication or the equipment they need to stay alive and independent. That is not rhetoric. That is the lived reality described by the Irish Wheelchair Association, the Disability Federation of Ireland and Access for All Ireland, which protested outside this House in December asking for one urgent and modest intervention, an emergency winter payment of €400. Disability in Ireland is not just about individual circumstances. It is about inequality. It is also about the extra costs people face just to get around, stay connected and live with dignity. These are absolutely not lifestyle choices. They are the price of participation in society.”
“in the context of escalating costs in energy, food and housing, disabled people are particularly vulnerable to cost pressures, especially as they are more likely to spend more of their time at home ... We know that to be true. The next line reads: ... the State-commissioned Indecon Cost of Disability in Ireland - Research Report, published in 2021, estimated the extra cost of living with a disability to be in the range of €8,700 - €12,300 ... That is €14,800 when adjusted for inflation. We also know that to be true. Given the truths and the facts that all of us across the Chamber must accept regardless of our beliefs and values, this motion is effectively about whether we are willing to let disabled people sit in cold homes this winter while the State tells itself comforting stories about its future plans.”
“I thank Deputies Hayes and Quaide for bringing this motion before us and for their commitment in respect of this matter. Effective parliamentary exchange often involves a contest of beliefs. Some people hold certain values while others hold different values. That is an exchange. However, this motion also includes what are just facts. If I mention a fact that the Minister disputes or says is not true, he should feel free to call me out. The first fact is that "disabled people in Ireland are among the most socially excluded and disadvantaged in the State, with some of the highest poverty, deprivation, and unemployment rates in Ireland". The next fact is that "one in five disabled people live in consistent poverty, nearly four times the national average, while nearly 40 per cent live in enforced deprivation". The motion reads: ...”
“That way, they are a restricted vehicle. All of us would agree with that. They do not belong in any public place. Let us ban them. I understand that is happening and we need a timeframe but let us go further and regulate them. These are the vehicle of choice for the transportation of drugs in my community and others. Let us get in front of that now and start the process.”
“That is a justifiable ask. If the Minister cannot shed light on that today, maybe he could make a public statement on it by the end of the week. However, we have to go further. I understand legislation takes time but as the Minister said himself, there is cross-party agreement. There is nothing stopping us from getting emergency legislation through, if necessary. If a person seeks to buy a scrambler for sport, I absolutely understand that. There are still clubs. There is one up on the Alfie Byrne Road and I am sure there are others around the country. I am also conscious people need them on farms and in other rural environments. There is no reason why that cannot be linked to some form of an identification number from a registered supplier so that when you purchase them, there is a number allocated.”
“I know it has always been an offence to drive scramblers dangerously in a public environment. I also know that in a public place, there is absolutely no safe way to drive a scrambler. That is what the difference is. There is no safe way to drive a scrambler in an urban environment. I trust the Minister on the enactment of regulation that will bring through the provision. I would like a sense of the timeframe from the Minister because we all watched Siobhán Lynch last night. The pain in that mother's voice is an absolute line in the sand moment for us. There is a mother and a family who are grieving but also committed to changing a situation that is impacting their whole community, their whole city and beyond. They deserve a sense of a timeframe for the regulations to be advanced. Will it be a month or two months?”
“I will trust them because I saw the determination in the Minister's eyes and the Taoiseach's eyes today but we need to go further. We need to regulate the sale of them and make them much harder to purchase because there is no justification for what we see with our own eyes. There are kids on scrambler bikes. Let us be very clear: people are transporting drugs on them, the bikes are seized and they are back on a different scrambler like within a couple of days. I would like to understand the timeframe by which section 35A will actually come into force and maybe we can go beyond that and regulate their sale.”
“I am conscious that the previous Commissioner said that gardaí had that power but it was left up to individual gardaí to make that decision. That was wrong. I understand that section 35A, which would mandate the prohibition of scrambler bikes, has yet to be brought into regulation. We discussed that today. However, we need to go further and go at the sale of these bikes. There is the idea that a scrambler should only be used in an environment where there is a club associated with it. If it has a role in some sort of rural vocation, that is fine, but we cannot have a scenario where you can go onto Snapchat and buy a scrambler bike second-hand. Gardaí have told me they are seizing these bikes and the same people they are seizing them off are getting more two or three days later. We absolutely need to ban these bikes.”
“If there is a football match going on, it will stop. I have been walking down the streets and you see scrambler bikes coming up through bike lanes. I have been walking home from the Dáil in the evenings and have seen them going up and down O'Connell Street. We have to take scrambler bikes out of our communities. We have to simply ban them from urban areas. I say urban areas because, obviously, they are the areas I understand well, but I am conscious this is an issue that impacts communities the length and breadth of the country. There is no justification for a person to be on a scrambler bike in an urban environment, or any road in a public area, yet they persist. The Garda has done a great job in terms of seizure and apprehension of the bikes, despite the fact that there is a grey area in terms of whether gardaí can pursue.”
“It was awe-inspiring to see that level of courage. We are all devastated that she had to find this courage, given the grief that she had suffered only the day previously. The Minister has said in one of his last contributions that this should be seen as a line in the sand and I absolutely believe him. Regarding the enactment of section 35 of the Road Traffic Act, there was actually a lot of good in that in terms of the capacity of gardaí to intervene. We have seen the seizure of more than a few hundred scrambler bikes over the last number of years. However, I live in the city centre. Each morning and night, I will walk my dog through various parks around the area and without question you will hear the rev at some point that week of a scrambler bike. When you hear that rev, you will look around and see parents grabbling their children.”
“I am taking this on my own. I think this is my third time today speaking about scrambler bikes. I spoke initially with the Taoiseach today, I spoke with the Minister in committee and now I have the opportunity to raise it as a Topical Issue. The reason it is topical is because of the tragedy that occurred in Finglas two nights ago when a 16-year-old lost her life in a manner that was despicable and heart-wrenching. Yesterday, we all watched a mother, who had to place her grief and her devastation alongside courage that the whole country could only see as unimaginably brave, stand in front of her community - a part of Dublin that I do not represent but one that I know quite well - and find the strength in her voice to say that we, and she herself, would campaign to remove scrambler bikes from her community.”
“I am also conscious of the €4.4 million from the proceeds of crime fund. Of the 42 projects under that fund this year, only five were in any way related to drug-related intimidation, equating to approximately €473. Essentially, for drug-related intimidation this year alone, the Minister's Department and the Department of Health have allocated less than €700,000. I do not doubt for a second that the Minister recognises drug-related intimidation as something to be confronted, but what I do doubt is the capacity of this minuscule funding to deliver in terms of achieving that aim. I would like to work with him. If we work collaboratively, we can get more things done in this area.”
“That is probably part of the issue. I have raised drug-related intimidation with the Minister on numerous occasions. I am not sure, in terms of this particular project, if it availed of the community safety fund. I suspect it did, which is why that is not being renewed, given the requirement for a project to be something new that has not been funded previously. Therefore, it would not be eligible. I am also very conscious of drug-related intimidation being seen as something that is a scourge on communities the length and breadth of Ireland, but tackling it is not particularly well funded. I spoke to the Minister today at the committee about the fact that the drug-related intimidation and violence engagement, DRIVE, scheme was basically funded to €280,000 a year across the Twenty-six Counties. That equates to less than €20,000 per county.”
“I ask the Minister the reason that funding for the drug-related intimidation liaison role at the Whitechurch addiction service was not renewed this year; and the specific alternative supports that will be in its place to ensure victims and families facing organised crime and drug-related intimidation will continue to receive equivalent specialist assistance without interruption.”
“I do not doubt that the Minister has a difficult job but for this particular policy change, I do not think it is reflective of a fair or just system. There is still time to change; I understand the Minister is bringing through amendments to the International Protection Bill. I would ask him that maybe we should just reflect on this particular scheme, taking all the others out and dealing with them individually. This one actually aids integration and helps the person who has already proven their status beyond a very high bar.”
“Again, I am very specifically referring to the refugee family reunification scheme. We have a high bar in this country already to achieve refugee status. In order to achieve that, the person needs to demonstrate that they fled war, persecution or that their family is from a place where loss of life would have been a possibility or a direct threat to life. It is actually only 669 people and it is immediate spouse, your wife, your husband, your child or, in the case of a child that has come here, it is just their parent. There is already an 18-month wait for the family reunification scheme. If a child comes here unaccompanied at the age of 15 or 16, they would have to wait three years, so they have already timed out of the system.”
“In fact, it is almost 50% of a difference. I will go into the details of why family reunification is catered for under the Geneva Convention because it is very different. I could understand the logic if the Minister tells me that somebody comes here on a work visa and would need to be able to demonstrate. I can see that argument. I may not agree with it in its entirety but refugees have already gone through the system. They have proven their capacity to be eligible for refugee status and to have a family member here gives them the capacity to integrate, find work and be able to support. The three schemes are very different. They need to be seen that way.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. I am very familiar with the differences between the three schemes, which is why I very specifically framed my question in the context of the family reunification scheme under the refugee scheme. I am glad the Minister gave me an exact figure of 669 because I found it quite eye-opening when he was doing an interview with "RTÉ News: Six One" a couple of weeks ago when this scheme was announced. He was asked the exact same question and his answer, to give a definition, was that it was approximately 1,000. There is a big difference between approximately 1,000 and 669.”
“I ask the Minister to present to us the total number of people granted permission to enter the State under the family reunification scheme, where the sponsor held refugee or subsidiary protection status in 2025.”