Michael McDowell
National University of Ireland · Independent · Ireland
“Then I think of this particular Chamber where people are polite and kind to each other and listen to each other respectfully. There is no baying or shouting down or whatever. It is a great tribute to the Seanad staff that that spirit continues to exist in this House.”
“I note that the whole scheme of the planning Act is that exempt development proposals are considered by the Houses. It is questionable whether this House has really considered the exempt development regulations. Without debate, we sent them off to a committee.”
“I am one of the people who disagrees with the substance of that report. We have to have a real solid debate on it here in this House, not merely a cursory one. It is an issue of fundamental importance. It cannot be avoided, one way or the other. Whatever your views are on it, it needs to be thrashed out.”
“Although coming up to the end of this term we are rushing things through, and the guillotine is well-oiled and slicing this way and that, we have a lot of work to do in the autumn.”
“The people who did that were brought before the International Court of Justice and condemned and imprisoned. If Ireland does not clearly state that there are to be consequences for people who do things like what Mladić, Milošević and Karadžić were brought to account for, if we are incapable as a State of publicly saying that what Secretar…”
“If we cannot, as a State, say publicly to Rubio, "Hands off the International Criminal Court", when they were quite happy when the people who did the 7,000 murders in Srebrenica got their just desserts, but when there is any suggestion that what has happened in Gaza, with 70,000 innocent people killed by aerial bombardment and land bombar…”
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“Although coming up to the end of this term we are rushing things through, and the guillotine is well-oiled and slicing this way and that, we have a lot of work to do in the autumn. To prepare ourselves for that work, all the Members of both Houses are entitled to a good break so they can recharge their batteries and address these real issues which the people need to have addressed in this House.”
“I am one of the people who disagrees with the substance of that report. We have to have a real solid debate on it here in this House, not merely a cursory one. It is an issue of fundamental importance. It cannot be avoided, one way or the other. Whatever your views are on it, it needs to be thrashed out. The same applies to the housing crisis, which Senator Fitzpatrick mentioned. Whether we will ever hit the 60,000 target we have set for ourselves is doubtful but at least it has to be said that there is significant production of homes in a period of homelessness. Finally, we need in this House to have a sincere and realistic debate on immigration, migration and asylum-seeking. All of those issues have to be considered in the autumn.”
“Then I think of this particular Chamber where people are polite and kind to each other and listen to each other respectfully. There is no baying or shouting down or whatever. It is a great tribute to the Seanad staff that that spirit continues to exist in this House. Apart from them, throughout Leinster House there are the ushers, the secretaries, the people manning the committees, the technical staff and the like, the catering staff and the bar staff. All of these people make this Parliament a pleasant and effective Parliament, which operates as a democratic institution of which the Irish people can be proud. I want to express our gratitude to all of them for everything they do. They are not sufficiently thanked but they deserve our thanks. I will go to what Senator Fitzpatrick mentioned. She mentioned the drugs committee report.”
“I note that the whole scheme of the planning Act is that exempt development proposals are considered by the Houses. It is questionable whether this House has really considered the exempt development regulations. Without debate, we sent them off to a committee. We do not know what it made of them but it reported them back to us and, without debate, we are going to adopt them. That is not what the spirit of the Act required. On behalf of the Seanad Independent Group, I express our collective gratitude to the Leas-Chathaoirleach, the Cathaoirleach, Martin Hughes, Aileen Fallon and all of the staff in the Seanad for the great work they have put into making this House function properly and effectively and in making it a pleasant place to be. I often think of Dáil Éireann and compare it in my mind to Westminster, which is a bear pit.”
“I am not suggesting the Minister or the Irish Government is in any way lacking in this respect but the whole of Europe has to say that we believe in the ICC, that any attack on it is contrary to the European Union's fundamental values and that we will take steps against any company that co-operates with American sanctions against the judges, prosecutors and staff of the ICC with a view to damaging that institution or, to use Secretary of State Rubio's phrase, dismantling it and causing countries to abandon it.”
“It should make adequate provision for the people who are the subject of these sanctions. It should stand up for them and make sure they are not driven into poverty, isolation and incapacity to function as ordinary people in a complex society as the result of bullying from Washington. I do not know how the Minister could do so but, as we now hold the Presidency, if we really do believe in the ICC, we have to collectively stand up and say to the American Administration, even if Visa and Mastercard are frightened of American sanctions, that they will be sanctioned in Europe for undermining the ICC. We should tell Washington that and see how it goes down. We in Europe are very naive.”
“While we are on the subject, I take Senator Ahearn's point. We cannot make the best the enemy of the good. On the question of services, I do not agree that there is a significant difference. As a matter of international law, "trade" covers both. I thank the Minister for her remarks about the International Criminal Court. We hold the Presidency of the EU. The American Government is sanctioning judges of the International Criminal Court and making their lives impossible by telling the likes of Visa, Mastercard and banks that they may not deal with these people. They are threatened with criminal prosecution in the United States if they do so. It is easy for me to say this but I think the European Union should stand up clearly against those sanctions and impose counter-sanctions on any company that obeys American law in this respect.”
“If we cannot, as a State, say publicly to Rubio, "Hands off the International Criminal Court", when they were quite happy when the people who did the 7,000 murders in Srebrenica got their just desserts, but when there is any suggestion that what has happened in Gaza, with 70,000 innocent people killed by aerial bombardment and land bombardment and 25,000 children dead in the slaughter, they are quite happy to say now that the institution which has condemned that as genocide and called on all member states to cut off trade relations with the illegal occupation should itself be swept aside because it is inconvenient for American foreign policy, and if we are not capable of making a clear statement in public to Ambassador Walsh to bring back to Secretary of State Rubio and President Trump that Ireland utterly rejects that campaign, condemns it and stands by the International Criminal Court, we are a flaccid, weak democracy.”
“I am asking the Minister in this debate to take the opportunity to talk about what Secretary of State Rubio said about the ICC, which is mentioned in the title of this legislation and something Ireland supports, and that we condemn utterly and without reservation a plan by the Trump Administration articulated by Secretary of State Rubio to dismantle that court and, worse still, he said to use all economic pressure they can on states to secede from the Rome Statute. It is happy that the Hungarian change of regime in Budapest has stopped the proposed rejection of the International Criminal Court suggested by Viktor Orbán. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is a battle between good and evil. It is not just some lawyer's argument.”
“The people who did that were brought before the International Court of Justice and condemned and imprisoned. If Ireland does not clearly state that there are to be consequences for people who do things like what Mladić, Milošević and Karadžić were brought to account for, if we are incapable as a State of publicly saying that what Secretary of State Rubio is now attempting to do, which is to dismantle the only instrument of international justice and the international rule of law that dealt with that without any objection from the Americans at the time - they were quite happy to see these men condemned - the only conclusion you can draw is that America proposes that war crimes of that kind go unpunished unless somebody in Washington does a snatch squad job on whoever it may be in Venezuela or fires a missile at whoever they may want to obliterate in Iran and that is to be international law and the rule of law internationally from now on.”
“The reason I think this is the opportunity to do it is that Ambassador Walsh is in the Phoenix Park announcing that this legislation is a stunt. That is insulting to Ireland. It is far worse than that. His boss, so to speak, in the American Administration is calling upon the 125 signatories of the Rome Statute to dismantle the International Criminal Court. I will not use any further example except to say that while 70,000 people and more, including 25,000 children, nearly all of whom are entirely innocent of anything, have been killed in Gaza without any condemnation from the United States of America, there was a time when Serbian generals sorted out over 7,000 Muslim men having overrun the UN-protected enclave in Srebrenica. They took them out and machine-gunned them into mass graves.”
“The original argument about money messages was all about whether something was a potential charge on the people, which is not the authorisation of moneys in the manner covered by the money message. Senator Stephenson mentioned something and I should have mentioned it earlier. Between the Second Stage debate on this Bill and today, the Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, has gone public. He has stated that they are now deploying a strategy internationally to dismantle the International Criminal Court. I ask the Minister, as Ireland's Minister for foreign affairs, to take this opportunity to roundly condemn this campaign which has been announced by the Secretary of State of the United States of America to bring about the dismantling of the International Criminal Court.”
“I understand there was a money message from the Taoiseach when the Bill was going through the Dáil. It is interesting to note what that message stated, "to authorise such payments out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas as are necessary to give effect to any Act of the present session to provide for compliance by the State with its international legal obligation, as identified by the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion of 19 July 2024". In fact, the money message states that any money that has to be paid out of public money in respect of this is authorised out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas. I want to say this in relation to the Standing Orders of this House.”
“The notion that Ireland will be punished by tariffs or anything else or that a non-investment will take place in Ireland because of a view that we take about whether this Bill should or should not apply to services is fanciful in the extreme. The point that annoyed me about the Chicken Littles who said the sky was going to fall if we proceeded with this legislation is they have now gone silent because the Government has decided to proceed with it as regards goods. We should be courageous enough to extend it to services because the sky ain't going to fall on that account either.”
“We can say, along with the Spaniards, that something that is clearly identifiable as the provision of a service is to be prohibited as regards its provision in the State for reward, but surely, in practical terms, being honest and truthful, it would be so easily evaded if it was applied to services and that including services is highly unlikely to have any significant practical effect. There are a lot of people who went public - some of them to my gravest disappointment; I think they were cowardly – and said if we keep on with this Bill, even in respect of goods, the consequences will be terrible for Ireland. They have not been, and they will not be. We will not be the subject of retaliatory this or that. America, because of the situation that now exists there, is a different place from the place it was even a year ago.”
“Proving where the service actually emanates in the great majority of professional services is virtually impossible, unless the person providing the service is blatantly stamping it all over their contractual documents or whatever that it emanated from one place or another. If this is as the American ambassador so unfortunately, rudely and disrespectfully refers to as a stunt as regards goods, the suggestion that somehow its extension to services would present special difficulties cuts both ways.”
“If you are talking about the difficulty and impracticality of deciding where services are originating from, what is the realistic, truthful political justification for saying we cannot ban trade in them as emanating from one part of the Middle East, namely, the unlawfully occupied territories, rather than the rest of Israel, which would not be caught by it? I do not know. I do not want to belittle anything but if you are talking about tokenism, that cuts both ways. If the Minister is saying it is difficult to police, that cuts both ways in relation to services because the simple fact, as I read it, is that virtually any service can be provided anywhere, even if the people who have actually done the work are located somewhere else. Working from home is one thing; working from an illegally occupied settlement is another thing.”
“I would like to know if that has happened on this occasion. The American ambassador to Ireland has described even this legislation as a stunt. It is not normal behaviour for any diplomat to say to a sovereign parliament that it is engaging in a stunt, or to accuse a government, even in respect of goods, to be engaging in a stunt. Services can be easily relocated as to their origin. If I live in Ranelagh and I provide an opinion as a barrister, it could be provided in the Four Courts or it could be provided in my house. It could be provided in my holiday home if I want. Services are so mobile, except for the kinds of services the Spanish are prohibiting.”
“Has the Taoiseach said that this involves a potential charge or appropriation on the people and that the risk of some kind of fine or whatever coming from the European Union is such that he is recommending it for the purposes of the particular article of the Constitution? The absence of such a message was clearly identified as a reason Senator Black's Bill could not go anywhere in the past. We have to remember, as I said on Second Stage, that the Fianna Fáil Party supported Senator Black's Bill then. The Government was in a minority in Dáil Éireann. The fig leaf it resorted to, to prevent the Fianna Fáil members doing in the Dáil what they had done here, was to signal that the legislation as proposed by Senator Black would require a money message and that such would not be forthcoming from the Government.”
“We are entitled to have a clear view as to the strength, force and determination of Ireland to adhere to this position if the matter becomes the subject of a dispute between the Commission and, for example, Spain in the European Court of Justice. There is another question I would like the answer to. This legislation has passed all Stages in Dáil Éireann and come to us for consideration. Did the Taoiseach, pursuant to the Constitution, provide a money message in respect of this Bill? We were told at one stage that was a reason it could not even get going in the Dáil. I would like to know if there is a money message for this legislation.”
“For instance, has the Attorney General said that it would be unlawful by law to do in Ireland what the Spanish have done, which is to prohibit advertisement of Airbnb-type services where they are located in illegally occupied territories? Are we to believe that Ireland's position is a rigid position? Or are we to believe, which I think is more likely, that it is an on-balance view of the Attorney General one way rather than another, but that either outcome is arguable if the matter were challenged in European law? I would love to see what the Attorney General would say, in his professional advice to the Government, is the likely outcome of such a challenge at this stage. I think we are entitled to know if we are going to have the Attorney General's advice given to us as a reason for not dealing with a ban on trade.”
“Would the Attorney General, who has gone to the Court of Justice of the European Union, say that? Would he say that he wants to tog out, so to speak, against Spain on this issue and represent it as Ireland's view that Spain may not take even the limited steps it has taken in relation to services? That is the question. Would Ireland intervene in those proceedings to say that no member state can do this as a matter of European law and that we invite the European Court of Justice to rule that Spain is acting in violation of European law. If we would not do that, why is that the case? If we say it is so important that Ireland cannot do it but that it is not so important that any other member state can even take modest steps in this regard, then what is the explanation for Ireland's attitude?”
“However, if I were asked by the Government to argue the case, I would be happy to argue that no member state can lawfully ban trade in services with entities in the occupied territories. The litmus test is the third point I would like clarification on. Senator Black described how Spain has limited the advertisement by companies like Airbnb of residential services in the occupied territories. If a member state like Spain were brought up before and challenged by the Court of Justice of the European Union for breaching EU law on that account - the issue arose in the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg as to whether that was lawful - would Ireland go in there and say that our view is that Spain cannot do this, and urge the court to tell Spain it is acting unlawfully?”
“If somebody in Europe says we cannot do this and may not do it as a matter of EU law, then the Irish people are entitled to know that is what the European institutions have said. That is the first thing. Turning to the Attorney General, has the Attorney General categorically advised the Government that any member state that bans trade in services emanating from, or provided by entities in, the occupied territories would be in breach of EU law? Has he said that in his view, as a matter of European law, no member state can do this? Has he said that categorically, or has he said there are two views on this and that he favours one view rather than another? It is possible the European Court of Justice would take one view rather than another.”
“I would like a clear yes-no answer to that. If we have been told we cannot do it, that is one thing, because the Attorney General would then have to say that we are facing a challenge from the EU. The issue then moves from being one in which it is possible to hold bona fide views on either side of the question. The real question is this. Has any EU institution communicated to Ireland in any way that members states are prohibited as a matter of EU law from prohibiting trade and services emanating from, or provided by entities in, the occupied territories? If so, we would like to hear about it, and we are entitled to hear about it. That is not a secret. It is not confidential.”
“I welcome the Minister here. I fully accept that the Government in general terms follows the advice of the Attorney General. I also fully accept the proposition that, in general terms, the advice given to the Government by the Attorney General is first of all confidential and, second, generally not published. I have no problem with those propositions. However, I fully agree with every single word Senator Black has just spoken, and the reason I want to intervene at this point is as follows. First, I want the Minister to tell the House, has any EU institution communicated to Ireland in any way that Ireland, as a member state, is prohibited as a matter of EU law from prohibiting trade in services emanating from or provided by entities in the occupied territories? Has anybody in Europe ever said we may not do this?”
“I remember he was appointed to it by then President Mary McAleese and he was a really effective member of that body on the one occasion that I was there when constitutionality and the necessity for legislation was considered. In every sense, he was a true patriot and a real example for us all.”
“On my behalf, and I think I speak for everybody in this House, we send our deepest sympathy to his beloved and loving wife Carmel, to Fiona, Neil, Fergal and their partners, and to his grandchildren whom he loved so much on the loss of, not a patriarch, just the most decent man one could hope to meet. Finally, if his death brings an end to all of the friendships he made, that is bad enough. However, his career, his kindness and his personality should never be forgotten and should be a model for everybody who has the luck and good fortune to be in a position to engage in patriotism on behalf of his country. He served on the Council of State when I was a member of that.”
“Over and above all of that, Martin ran a very substantial business. He and Lochlann Quinn built it up to be a tremendous employer in the north-eastern region of this country. Martin did so with kindness, fairness, extremely hard work and business acumen which was a joy to behold. Martin was a totally decent, kind man. He was a pleasure to meet. He was a friend to me and my wife. He was such a generous host. He always thought the best of people with whom he dealt and, for all his wealth, which was significant, he was not spoiled by it in any way. Many people who accumulate huge amounts of wealth go off into the stratosphere and live a life unlike that of the rest of us, but he remained Martin Naughton; a thoroughly decent, kind and gentle man - humble in many ways but also realistic about the things he could do to benefit his country.”
“I put on record my appreciation, which I am sure is shared by everyone here, of the immense contribution Martin Naughton has made to Ireland in so many different ways. He and his wonderful wife, Carmel, have been tremendous philanthropists. Quietly and effectively, they have endowed many institutions. They gave €25 million to Trinity College Dublin. They endowed Irish-language faculties in the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. They made a huge contribution towards the rebuilding of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. Carmel has served as chair of the board of governors of the National Gallery of Ireland. The things they have done for education, for science and research and places such as Kylemore Abbey have supported so many good causes in Ireland. It is an endless list and I could not possibly do it justice here just from memory.”
“I want to make one point. It is a pity that running towards the end of this Oireachtas term, the usual thing is happening, which is the guillotine is being deployed with abandon. The length of time given to individual items in the proposed Order of Business today is inadequate. An hour and a quarter is given to the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2026, of which 20 minutes is given to the Minister. The remaining time is divided between the groups in this House, with ten minutes for each group and five minutes for each Senator. There are six groups in the House, so there is not enough time. The planning and development Bill deserves a little bit more time than that. The second thing I want to deal with is to say it is a sad day today because the very private funeral of Martin Naughton is taking place.”
“I do not care what he does in Doonbeg but if he puts his toe outside it I hope there is a massive demonstration by the Irish people to say we do not share his values; we want justice for the Palestinian people and we do not want his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his pals rebuilding the Gaza Strip as an American enclave on the Mediterranean. We do not want any further expansion of Israel in breach of international law and we want to make it very clear that threats of tariffs, threats of retaliation or threats of any kind do not wash with us. We have the right as a sovereign independent people to stand up for what is right.”
“This was done, and has been done consistently over the last number of years. America is one of the sources of that defamation of the people of Ireland. We have been told that we have an antisemitic streak in us. We do not. There is not any evidence of antisemitism in all of this. Any Government run by the corrupt President of the United States, Donald Trump, that appoints Mike Huckabee to be its ambassador in Jerusalem and encourages the extreme Zionists to be more and more unjust, murderous and expropriationary in relation to the Palestinian people should be ashamed of itself. I hear there are proposals that President Trump may come to Ireland.”
“Let us remember, going back to the supply and confidence period, that Fianna Fáil and the Opposition parties in the Dáil all could have passed that legislation were it not for the attitude taken by the Government. I just want to put all that on the record. I also want to put on the record that those of us in this House who supported the Bill, people like Senator Black, myself, Ivana Bacik and David Norris, were immediately attacked as antisemites by the crooks and extremists who constitute a significant portion of the Israeli Government. This was an outrageous defamation of decent people who have always supported the right of Israel to exist within its recognised boundaries. We were accused of antisemitism to brand us with a kind of Nazi opposition to the Jewish people.”
“At the time, the great preponderance of legal opinion expressed was along the lines that the view taken by the Attorney General in respect of services was wrong. Let us be clear about that. As a former Attorney General, I know one thing: if you say there is a danger that something might happen, it is leapt on by some people in government to say, "The Attorney General has said we cannot do it". I want to make it very clear that if the Attorney General actually says, "This is manifestly illegal or unconstitutional", or whatever, that is one thing, but if we have some milk and watery opinion expressing views about the dangers and risks, that is a very different thing. It is a very different thing because it gives carte blanche to timid politicians or the like, or politicians who do not want to comply with the clear majority.”
“I want to say that not to recriminate with people here but to say that the Bill was passed by this House and then we had the advice of the Attorney General at the time to the effect that the Bill could not go any further in Dáil Éireann because it needed a money message from the Government and the Taoiseach. The suggestion was that because we might be open to some kind of EU sanction if we passed the legislation in both Houses, the Government was told that it was entitled to invoke the money message provision of the Constitution, and we had other objections thrown up too. Let us be clear about this: at the time there was a real public debate about whether there was or was not a valid reason to distinguish between goods and services.”
“I welcome the Minister and acknowledge, as others have done, the central role Senator Black has played in bringing this issue before these Houses and the Irish people. It is sometimes forgotten what happened in 2018. The only reason this House passed the occupied territories Bill was because the Fianna Fáil Party was, at that stage, party to a supply and confidence agreement with Fine Gael and did not feel itself obliged to support the Government's position on the Bill that was put before the House by Senator Frances Black and others at the time. Fianna Fáil supported her Bill at the time. Let us remember this. Without a peep out of them, they supported it.”
“On the need for strict rules of that kind, which disqualify people on the basis of what other judicial electorates decide, it seems unnecessary and overly complex.”
“I want to draw to the Minister's attention to the structures of the Judicial Council. In certain cases, there is provision for an elected member of the District Court and an elected member of the Circuit Court. It is also provided in law that at least one of them must be of the opposite gender to another. That means that if, for instance, the District Court elects a woman, the Circuit Court has to elect a man. That seems to be something that the Minister should reconsider. It is a bit intrusive to say to Circuit Court judges or to District Court judges that whosoever they elect will determine who the judges of the other court can elect for the purpose of gender balance on the whole board, and especially now that there are so many women judges doing such fine work as judges in our system.”
“Given the consequences for dealings with the State and the like, at the very least, one would imagine that the published register of people who are changing their name would contain a PPS number as an identifier in the manner that the Minister is proposing for the criminal justice system generally, but we do not have that. Those are the two points I would make on the matter. First, the stop and search powers are not really dealt with by a unique identifier because a criminal procedure must be initiated for them to come into question. Second, we have an unaddressed issue in relation to the capacity of people to conceal their former selves by changing their name. It is possible. Anybody can change their name. Somebody who has been convicted of a very serious offence sitting in Mountjoy can change their name.”
“If the consequence of a name change in those circumstances is that somebody is entitled to have a passport in their chosen name, or if somebody who has been convicted of domestic abuse wants to avoid the consequence of being on the register, and socially just wants to change their name and sail under a different flag, there is very little that can be done about it. I ask the Minister to take a long, hard look at the rules for name change as they exist in Ireland. They seem to reflect a very much more relaxed and 18th or 19th-century view of the entitlement to change your name.”
“The great majority seem to be for other reasons, none of which are specified. Somebody consulting the register who sees a name change cannot be sure who they are dealing with because, on the publicly available register, they do not know the address or the antecedents of the person who is changing his or her name for whatever reason. Members would be very surprised to see the number of people who are changing their names every month in Ireland. The alarm bells go off in my mind when I see some of them. Some I can understand completely. For example, on their birth certificate, they were registered as having somebody as their father, or maybe they were adopted or quasi-adopted by another family and want to be known by their second name.”
“Second, a lot of stuff is coming through now where, for instance, registers of people convicted of domestic abuse and the like are being created as a matter of law for the protection of innocent people who have to deal with people who have records in those areas. I consulted the procedure for changing your name. I discovered that it can be done very easily in the High Court by registering a deed poll of your intention to be known by a different name in the future. I consulted the publicly available register of name changes. I urge everyone in this House, if they have a spare half hour, to look at what is happening. There is a minority of people who are simply changing their name for reasons that I think are to do with gender issues, and changing from Patrick to Patricia, or whatever it may be, but they are a small minority.”
“However, it does not deal with the issue that Senator Ruane and I were dealing with, which is knowing how many people are randomly, or near randomly, searched unsuccessfully on streets throughout the country, and what kind of people they are. The PPS number or the criminal identifier will not supply the data in respect of them because there will be no need to do so unless we amend the law to say that we can stop somebody on Camden Street, search them for drugs, find they have no drugs, but also inquire of them what their PPS number is. That is never going to happen. As I said, the only PPS number of which I am aware is my VAT number, and if it were not for that, I would have no idea what my PPS number is.”
“I have two comments to make about that. First, the stop and search powers that we were concerned with are not ones where the unique identifier would come into place. Under the stop and search powers, where somebody is stopped and searched and found, for instance, not to have any specified articles in their possession, there is no criminal justice follow-on from that and, therefore, there is no record of them thereafter. I fully accept the Minister's point that it is desirable that, if a person is the subject of a prosecution, conviction or sentence, they be identifiable and traceable in a sensible way right across the criminal justice system at every level. I have no problem with that concept.”
“This absurdity and all that follows in terms of the difficulty of controlling it flows from the inappropriate policies and procedures defended at European level and, unfortunately, upheld by the Court of Justice of the European Union to the point where, as things stand, unless the Minister's council takes a stance on the issue and does something about it, we have effectively little or no defence against bogus asylum seeking.”
“That is effectively destination shopping among asylum seekers, which is totally at variance with the notion and proper interpretation of the international conventions. I may be being persecuted in Ireland, but that does not mean that I can ask myself where I would really like to live. It might be Australia or New Zealand or perhaps America. We accord to would-be asylum seekers the right to travel from the point at which they claim they were being persecuted to Luxembourg, then to Dublin without applying for asylum here, and then to Northern Ireland to apply within the United Kingdom for asylum. That is an absurd notion.”
“However, somebody might fly from somewhere in north-eastern Africa to Luxembourg, a safe country where he could apply for asylum if he had a good case and decide to move on to Dublin where he will get off the plane and go to Belfast with all the consequences we heard about in Belfast. Eurodac does not have any function in those circumstances. Nobody in Luxembourg would ask whether he had any right to travel to Dublin, whether he had any legitimate cause to go to Dublin or whether he even had a visa that allowed him into Dublin. That person is effectively choosing Ireland from somewhere he booked his flights to start with, or where they were booked for him by people smugglers.”
“I will be brief because it is probably stretching things. It has been 22 years since I was chair of the Council of justice and home affairs ministers. I will say two things to the Minister. First, he should never underestimate the extent to which the other members of the council will agree with my point of view rather than the point of view of some people in the Berlaymont building. They are much more independent spirits. Second, the Eurodac procedure is very useful for identifying somebody who applies for asylum in one country and attempts to do the same in another country within the European Union. That is useful.”
“I want to put on record my sense that the European Union is not serious – I am sorry to say this on the second day of our Presidency of the European Union – but it is not competent with a small "c", not a legal large "C" to deal with immigration and asylum seeking. It has made a mess of it and should return those competences to member states to take individually whatever measures they consider are necessary to protect the rights of real asylum seekers and to distinguish between bogus asylum seekers and economic migrants who are seeking to circumvent the law. The sooner that those changes are brought about the better.”