Patricia Stephenson
Labour Panel · Social Democrats · Ireland
“A number of us on this side of the House have concerns around what this is opening us up to. We are concerned that we do not have the correct protections and safeguards in place to ensure that the supply will be State-owned and State-led because it is not included in the definitions in the legislation.”
“The world is literally on fire in some places. We have a forest fire in Ireland for the first time in years perhaps. I know we sometimes have them in the Mourne Mountains in the North. This is cause for concern, not just for future generations but for us today.”
“I thank the Minister for coming in. This is a really positive step. I am delighted she is pushing it forward. By and large, the oral contraceptive is incredibly safe. A lot of well-studied medicines are available. Over-the-counter oral contraception has been recommended by the WHO since 2019.”
“I move amendment No. 1: In page 7, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following: “ “emergency” means a situation where the State is experiencing a significant and protracted physical disruption of gas supply, or other catastrophic deterioration of the supply situation, and where— (a) all relevant market-based measures have been fully…”
“The Department has stated this facility "will provide the resilience required to support our energy transition" and that "the reserve will only be used in genuine emergencies", yet there is no definition in this Bill of what the Government means by an emergency and when that would apply.”
“We also have to be mindful of the burden it will place on pharmacists without the correct resourcing for pharmacies to deliver the scheme to safeguard against them withdrawing from this or any future scheme simply because they feel they do not have the resources to deliver it in a timely manner.”
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“It is states that are responsible for resourcing the system such that it is capable of managing its workload and delivering positive and efficient outcomes. It is a misdiagnosis to look at the list of unexecuted judgments and say that is a problem for the court. This is because states have not implemented the judgment. It is completely disingenuous to say, for example, that the courts prevent deportations of foreign criminals. The Minister earlier listed a few cases and recommended that I go and look back at them. I shall do that. However, the court is enormously deferential to national systems. That is the truth of it. In a few of the high-profile cases and decisions, the courts were being over-compliant.”
“He mentioned that the hooded men case did not rest on torture and that the decision made related to inhumane and degrading treatment. I would like all of us in this Chamber to agree that what happened to the hooded men was, in fact, torture. It points to the conservativeness of the court, rather than its liberalness, to be awarding these decisions on low thresholds. It is actually a very high threshold that you are required to meet. States are central to the ECHR. It is states that are responsible for implementing the convention. It is states that are responsible for executing the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. It is states that are responsible in the meetings in Strasbourg for supervising the execution of judgments against other states.”
“The Minister said earlier, in response to Senator Boyhan, that compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR, is already standard practice as part of the Government's policy basis. It has signed up to it. Therefore, I do not understand why we would not include an amendment such as this. Why would we not legislate our commitment to it in this legislation? Of the 54,000 cases pending before the ECHR, approximately 1.5% relate to immigration. Most of them will be found inadmissible. In the past ten years, the court processed 430,000 applications, of which approximately 2% concerned immigration issues. Of the 54,000 pending cases, only four concern Ireland. We are talking about minuscule issues here. The Minister implied earlier that the threshold around the issue of inhumane and degrading treatment and torture is too high.”
“France, Spain, Türkiye and Germany did not sign it. Those four countries alone host approximately 50% of all the refugees, asylum seekers and people under temporary protection among the Council of Europe member states. Those states with the objectively biggest migration challenge are not jumping on the populist bandwagon by signing the joint statement. Indeed, the French ambassador to the Council of Europe described the move by Ireland, among the 27 member states, as insidious. Last week, the Minister said there were just a handful of cases from other countries that made this signature so important. I emphasise that just a handful of cases from other countries is the reason we are seeking to amend and alter the international human rights system. That beggars belief. That is why I want to see this amendment accepted.”
“I move amendment No. 18: In page 26, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following: "(2) Any order or regulation made under this Act shall comply with the European Convention on Human Rights.". I touched on a few of the points earlier during Senator Boyhan's amendment, but I will reiterate some of the elements. In his response to the contribution I made earlier, the Minister said that to suggest that the signature in December 2025 of the Irish State and the Minister on the political declaration by 27 members of the Council of Europe was somehow partisan or niche, and that it was a mistake to characterise it that way. I did not characterise it that way. I called it "populist and insidious". Some colleagues in the Council of Europe did sign it, but it is important to note who did not sign it.”
“Senator Boyhan's amendment provides assurances to us that the Minister is serious about keeping us in the ECHR, about the international frameworks that underpin our international protection system and our entire international law and human rights frameworks.”
“It is a populist move to provide very easy soundbites, I must say, in the incredibly fractious societal context we now see ourselves in. It is important to say that one of the leading voices in this process is the British Government. It was one of the leaders in this declaration which Ireland chose to sign. Under its own domestic pressures from Reform, the Labour Government thinks that leaning right to court Reform voters is somehow going to keep it in power. I think we can all agree you cannot out-reform Reform. That is a message for all of us. You cannot out-right the far right. It is clear the Tories and Reform want to take the UK out of the ECHR altogether. In this race to the bottom, we seem to be engaging closest with our closest neighbours in Britain. Will that lead to Ireland eventually removing ourselves from the ECHR?”
“We can include this amendment in the legislation and will therefore be required to make an assessment of how the ECHR is impacting deportations and international protection policy, if it is, which I do not believe it is. A major hole in the Government's argument around the ECHR somehow blocking domestic international protection policy is that there is no policy data. I think even the Minister said the ECHR is not impacting in Ireland - it might be impacting a few other member states in the Council of Europe but we have no data showing it is impacting Ireland. When the Minister for justice was asked by my colleague, Deputy Gannon, about providing the number of deportations that were blocked as a consequence of the ECHR, no data was given because there were no examples. That is because it is not a real threat to domestic legislation.”
“The ECHR provides varied and diverse communities with a sense of trust that there is an external and neutral framework that provides the same human rights protections to anyone, regardless of what community they are from - orange, green or new communities to Ireland - and regardless of what part of Belfast or the wider North you are from. That is a worrying, perhaps unintended, consequence of the Minister's decision to sign that letter. There is no data on the ECHR impacting deportations and international protection policy, but Senator Boyhan has asked for an analysis so that we can assess. This is why having a reporting amendment is so important.”
“That is not to mind the fact that any weakening of the ECHR poses a significant risk to peace on this island, given that it is a core pillar of the Good Friday Agreement. We are so used to the British Government's complete disregard for the North of Ireland. That was clear during the Brexit negotiations and was completely clear from the Tories' legacy Act. I find it shocking that any Irish Government would sign a letter that sought to undermine the ECHR, a fundamental framework that underpins the Good Friday Agreement. This has real-life consequences for the North.”
“It will reduce the human rights and right against torture and inhumane and degrading treatment of every single one of us - of every citizen. That is a terrifying thought. Senator Boyhan's amendment is about bringing us explicitly in line with the ECHR. This is not some flowery and soft amendment. It is crucial. We are seeing an existential threat to our human rights system, and we must, in times of crisis, be bolstering it. When social cohesion is being undermined, we must be bolstering our international human rights frameworks, not weakening them. During times of turbulence and polarisation, we need to be holding on to the legal frameworks that underpin ours and the Government's self-proclaimed values of human rights and dignity.”
“Through the political declaration, Ireland signalled to people in the human rights space that that was what it was doing. It signalled that we were interested in eroding the universality of human rights. It also signalled and represented a threat to the judicial independence of the ECHR. We should all be aghast that any such attempts would be made. That is why this amendment is about re-establishing our commitment to the universality of human rights when it comes to questions of international protection. The 27 countries that signed the political declaration in December, including Ireland, are effectively saying in the face of the migration crisis that obligations in respect of inhumane and degrading treatment should be reduced. To be clear, this will not just reduce the human rights and right against torture of asylum seekers.”
“If we were not born into a war-torn country and were not forced to flee we, have more rights than if we were born into a war-torn country and forced to flee, never mind that some of our traditional international partners like the US are now responsible for creating more uncertainty and displacement. When discussing Article 3, case law from the ECHR is clear that it is an unconditional right. European Court of Human Rights case law has established an incredibly high threshold for treatment to be considered inhumane and degrading. Therefore, I believe it is critical that this legislation explicitly reference the ECHR. That is why I commend Senator Boyhan on doing that. Any attempts to amend the threshold for torture and inhumane and degrading treatment is simply a race to the bottom.”
“It cannot be subject to any proportionality analysis under the ECHR. Simply put, torture is torture and degrading treatment is degrading treatment. It cannot be given a proportionality analysis. There is no balancing permitted between torture and national security interests, which I am sure we may hear some rhetoric on later. I commend Senator Boyhan on tabling this amendment. It focuses on the idea of the universality of human rights and the idea that everyone is born equal. As I said before while citing John Hume, difference is just an accident of birth. Does the Minister think everyone is born equal or is there a hierarchy of equality and access to rights based on what country you were born in?”
“Is there any inhumane and degrading treatment we should accept in Irish society to fit with his policy ambitions? Is it the squalid conditions in International Protection Accommodation Services, IPAS, centres that count as degrading under the ECHR that he might be trying to bypass? Is it the asylum seekers being forced to sleep in tents in winter conditions that he is worried could be classed as degrading treatment under Article 3 protections? Can we proportionately torture someone? Can we proportionately degrade someone? Is there proportionality around inhumane treatment? Exactly what part of the international protection system did this Government want less traditional oversight of when it came to the signature on a letter in December? The fact is that Article 3 of the ECHR is an absolute right.”
“We saw one against the Tory Government's horrendous legacy Act, which was going to see survivors of the Troubles blocked from seeking crucial justice. There is also, of course, the torture of the hooded men case from the 1970s. The idea that Ireland is attempting to weaken protections under Article 3 when that is the article under which we have taken two interstate cases is actually nuts. It is through the looking glass stuff. It makes no sense. There is no logic behind it. For those who do not know, Article 3 deals with standards of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment. The letter cosigned by Ireland in December suggests that the ECHR's Article 3 on torture is actually too restrictive and limiting for domestic legislation. The Minister might tell us what parts of Article 3 on torture are too limiting for his domestic policies.”
“There is no evidence in any of the traditional processes in Ireland or any of the judicial processes that have gone to the European Court of Human Rights that any withdrawal from Article 3 or Article 8 is necessary to implement domestic legislation. That is why having this included is so critical. Explicitly acknowledging and referencing the ECHR is fundamental to human rights protections within the international protection space. It will redress what I believe was a crucial mistake by this Government in December. It is a tragic irony that one of the elements of the ECHR that our Government has expressed interest in altering is Article 3. We briefly talked about this last week. Ireland has brought two interstate cases against the British Government on the grounds of Article 3 protections.”
“I believe it is a significant stain on this Government's record when it comes to championing human rights and international law. It makes this Government's rhetoric of respecting international law out to be simply rhetoric. That is why I appeal to the Minister to include this amendment in the legislation and show us he practises what he preaches when it comes to human rights and international law. Senator Boyhan's amendment and my amendments later on seek to address the utter shame and stain on the Government with regard to the letter signed in December. It was a populist move that was not required.”
“In response to these crises across the world, some of the Council of Europe countries, including Ireland, have taken a dangerous, populist and insidious path of turning our backs on the concept of the universality of human rights. Instead of turning towards the human rights system in times of crisis and safeguarding the values of human dignity and co-operation, we have seen countries in Europe, including Ireland, attempt to weaken human rights and the ECHR, as was done through the Chișinău process. The letter that was cosigned claimed the ECHR and the European Court of Human Rights were impacting domestic decisions on issues related to international protection and asylum seekers. As we know, if you have ever followed it, the data does not exist to back up that argument.”
“We can all say we believe in international law, we can all say we believe in human rights, but this amendment places Ireland as a country that practises what it preaches. I revert to Senator McCarthy's point about not just using theory but putting it into practice. I commend Senator Boyhan on this amendment. We are all following the awful news in the Middle East. This issue is linked. We see attacks on international law and the large levels of forced displacement that will accompany that as well as the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine and the significant number of refugees in Europe that war has created. We will see significant displacement from the Middle East as a consequence of the breaches of international law there. That is why it is so important that things like the ECHR are built into our international protection legislation.”
“It is so clear that we believe in international law and human rights. We say that all the time. Why would we not include this as a matter of course? Why, in any policy area, whether treatment of asylum seekers or otherwise, would a country like Ireland want to go against international law and not include this amendment in such an important piece of international legislation? That is not a rhetorical question. I hope we get a response from the Minister on that. Senator Boyhan's amendment puts the ECHR at the core of this new international protection legislation, which is the biggest overhaul in international protection we have seen since the early 2000s. It establishes Ireland as a country that does not just use the empty and often lazy rhetoric of international law.”
“As part of that, the ECHR is a fundamental human rights framework forged out of the horror of the Second World War in Europe. Human rights are coming under attack globally as states weaken them, arguing they are restricting their ability to implement domestic policy and that sovereignty is being undermined because, externally and internationally, agreed human rights law is intent on hindering them. That is a worrying and insidious shift in language that we are seeing from the 27 member states that signed the joint declaration in December, of which Ireland was one. To this point I ask why any state, whether Ireland or any other country, would want to implement domestic decisions that were contrary to the human rights framework, which is why I imagine we will be accepting Senator Boyhan's amendment.”
“That served to blur Ireland's position when it comes to the ECHR, and that is why I support Senator Boyhan's inclusion in this legislation of the ECHR and the adherence to international human rights law. It is incredibly important, particularly when we saw the signature in December, which seemed to indicate a very deeply worrying shift in Irish policy vis-à-vis international law and the ECHR. Human rights are the minimum standard that should be afforded to every person in the world regardless of what country or community they are born into. John Hume said that the differences we had between us were an accident of birth, and that is why it is so important that human rights, both for us in Ireland and for anyone who may be seeking international protection, are upheld.”
“I am pulling on what Senator McCarthy said about Ireland's commitment to human rights not being theoretical but put into practice. That is why I very much welcome Senator Boyhan's amendment. I have similar amendments later on, but in case we do not get to them, I am choosing to speak on some of them now because they are related. We heard from the Tánaiste last year that: The ECHR’s guarantees cannot be negotiated away, despite what some politicians might claim. Sometimes it is necessary to state the obvious: protecting fundamental rights protects everyone ... It is a sentiment I really agree with. In December, however, we saw Ireland sign the joint statement to the conference of ministers of justice. The Minister himself signed the statement.”
“We need a commitment from the Minister that she will bring the occupied territories Bill forward without delay and come to this House to explain why she has not. We wait for the Attorney General’s advice. We wait for so long. The Government can say it needs to ask the Attorney General more questions and that the details are not clear yet. It is about ten months since the foreign affairs committee, on a cross-party basis, approved a recommendation to pass the occupied territories Bill immediately, covering services, and at the same time requested that the Department, as part of a dual process, put all the plans in place to pass it, yet we have nothing.”
“For these and countless other reasons I could list all day, I ask why the Irish Government is not doing anything. You might say we cannot stop this and ask what we can do. We can pass the occupied territories Bill and show the Palestinian people that there is political will to back them in their cause for peace. What use is the recognition of Palestine? We talk about how Ireland was one of the first countries in the world in respect of this cause but it was the 142nd country in the world to recognise the state of Palestine. What is the point of it when the facts on the ground do not change and when Palestine is reduced to rubble and dust? So much for statehood recognition. What does it mean in practice? How did it change the lives of the Palestinian people?”
“We saw the horrendous massacre of the Bani Odeh family returning home from a Ramadan shopping trip. We have seen the unspeakable cruelty of the Israel Defense Forces, IDF, inflicting torture on an 18-month-old baby, including burning his little legs with cigarettes and poking him with rusty nails for ten hours before handing him back to the Red Crescent, while his father remained in detention. They were torturing a toddler. Every day, there are new and horrific breaches of international law by Israel. Israel is now furthering its expansionist colonial plans in south Lebanon, where it has already displaced more than 1 million people, blown up seven bridges and killed more than a thousand civilians, including children and healthcare workers in the process.”
“The Rafah crossing is, once again, closed with little to no humanitarian aid getting in. The Government shrugs its shoulders and says it cannot do anything about it. The UN has been cataloguing what it calls a systematic assault on humanitarian operations in the occupied Palestinian territory. A total of 37 aid organisations, including Irish organisations such as Trócaire, GOAL and Concern, and Médecins Sans Frontières, have been banned from providing essential life-saving aid to those in Gaza. More than 2,000 healthcare and humanitarian workers have been killed, many of whom were also working for the UN. Due to the deliberate targeting of food imports, many Palestinians are starving to death. It is estimated that about four out of every five people are facing crisis levels of hunger.”
“A question I ask myself day in and day out, a question the Palestinians ask themselves day in and day out, and a question Irish people ask themselves constantly is why the Irish Government is not doing anything in the face of the ongoing human rights violations and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. Perhaps it is because we hear there is a ceasefire. Perhaps this is why the Government is not doing anything. We all know that, in reality, there is no actual ceasefire. Since the so-called ceasefire, Israeli aggression against the people of Gaza has continued. Nearly 700 Palestinians have died and 2,000 have been injured. Perhaps because 70,000 people have been killed altogether the numbers have lost any meaning for us. On Sunday, a strike against a refugee camp killed three and injured ten.”
“Regarding the scoping exercise for the survivors and victims of Michael Shine, it is crucial that their voices are heard. Michael Shine's actions are a stark reminder of the devastating consequences that arise when trust in our healthcare system is profoundly violated. The survivors deserve dignity and protection after their rights were utterly violated under his care. The impact on survivors has been deep and enduring. It caused long-term psychological trauma. Their courage to speak out has highlighted their personal suffering but has also exposed serious failings in oversight and accountability, underscoring the urgent need for a survivor-centred inquiry and to ensure that this does not happen again. There is one individual involved, but we must consider the questions of accountability, oversight and governance.”
“Now, we have a facilitator who has been appointed without their input. Again, this creates a dynamic of erosion of trust. As we move forward with the scoping exercises and the inquiry, we really need to get the fundamentals right. We need to define complexity, clearly and clinically, when it comes to scoliosis. We need to include the voices of children, families and advocates in shaping this work. We need to fix waiting list management in order that it reflects real-world progression and urgency of clinical needs. We need to have all of these reports and reviews published up to this point, or else it is meaningless. We are going in blind into this new inquiry. We will be duplicating and will not be getting the best for the patients.”
“We are using the term "facilitator." I understand that there is no legal definition or statutory basis in Ireland for the term "facilitator." I wonder why we are using the term "facilitator" as opposed to that of "mediator". Why are we are not using something for which we have a statutory basis? The Minister of State might speak to that. Patient advocacy groups were promised a collaborative approach in the selection of the mediator. However, it seems that the mediator - and I think he is somebody who has got great qualifications, so it is not a question of querying any of that or of querying the individual himself - but it was not done collaboratively with the patients. It was done without any prior discussion, and the parents and advocacy groups believed that they would have engagement on the selection of the mediator.”
“How can we have meaningful engagement when those reports have not been published? How can we seriously ask advocates to co-develop the terms of reference when they do not have access to these reports? We all know that there is deep and growing frustration among families about responses from CHI. Too often, engagement has been dismissive, slow and very disconnected from the urgency of the children's clinical needs. This has also contributed to the erosion of trust. Rebuilding that trust requires more than words. It requires meaningful change. There remains a question around the definition of "mediator" in the context of the inquiry.”
“That means children themselves in an age-appropriate and rights-based way. It means their families, who are often forced to become full-time advocates simply to secure basic care. It means the inclusion of children who have aged out of the child services they needed. It also means the inclusion of advocacy groups that dealt with this issue for years, and long before it received any political attention. Their voices need to be heard. The term "direct engagement" has been used by the Department in referencing the scoping exercise, but what does that really mean? It sounds great in theory, but there is a real risk of it becoming tokenistic, particularly when parents have not had access to previous reviews. This engagement is happening without sight of the report from the task force or of the previous reports that remain unpublished.”
“I understand that the Department is engaging with advocacy groups and parents so that they engage in the terms of reference, but if they do not have access to that information and if the Nayagam report is not published in advance of those terms of reference, can they meaningfully engage with the new inquiry? I would say they cannot, and that is a big problem. I do not know if we can really ask them to engage. It will feel like a box-ticking exercise if they have not received and been able to analyse the Nayagam report in advance of that. I want to touch on the issues around inquiry design, including how we design the scoping mechanism and what the inquiry is going to look like. If the inquiry is to have any credibility, it has to include the voices of the most affected.”
“When we go into this new inquiry, we must consider how to build trust so that there is a sense of this inquiry actually delivering answers for people. Is there any reflection on what safeguards will be put in place to ensure this new inquiry will not have an injunction placed on it? Is that something that is going to be inevitable? Are there any safeguards we can put in place to stop that so that when the review is finalised and when the inquiry is done, it can be published? There is also a critical piece around the Nayagam report. It is very difficult for parents to meaningfully engage with the terms of reference when they actually do not have that review.”
“The Nayagam report was published to deal with springs placed in children. The first stage was completed, with 91 children reviewed and over 60 children needing follow-up. That report has still not been published. The Department said it wants to publish that. It is now subject to an injunction, so it cannot be published. May I have any comment on whether the Government is challenging that injunction? What steps are in place so that the parents and children can have clear access over that review? It is really crucial. It needs to be published. These are only some of the issues surrounding around openness and transparency that have completely eroded trust among parents who have children with scoliosis and spina bifida. Trust is broken. I am sure the Minister of State can recognise that.”
“There has been no communication to families. The task force now appears to have been replaced by an internal group within CHI, but for this new group, there are still no terms of reference that have been published and no clarity on governance or accountability around it. It feels like it is more of the same when it comes to transparency and accountability for families. There is still no clarity on how the waiting lists are being managed. That is why it is so crucial that we address this when it comes to the new inquiry. The Minister committed to an equity of access audit on spinal surgery waiting list management. That was due in November 2025 and I believe it is still not published. This audit is critical. It goes directly to whether children are accessing scoliosis care fairly and based on clinical need.”
“They are not adapting to clinical needs and changing sufficiently. They are not sufficiently dynamic and they are not responsive. Crucially, they are not transparent enough for families who are left in the dark as to where they stand on the waiting lists and what comes next for them. I welcome the inquiry, but there are concerns about the ability of CHI and the Department to do this right because up to the to this point, there has been a chronic lack of transparency and there has been obfuscation from CHI to families. With the paediatric spinal task force for waiting lists that was established 2024, there was some hope of answers and clarity for families, but what have we got to show for it? No final report has been published. No recommendations have been issued. There has been no public update since May 2025.”
“It is, therefore, essential for Chloe and every other young adult who has aged out of being considered a child and who has aged out of children's healthcare that they be included in the terms of reference of this inquiry, as the failure to treat them as children led to their deaths or the complex conditions they now have as adults. I also want to extend my condolences to both Chloe and Harvey's families today. Waiting list management is not an administrative issue. It is about clinical urgency and fairness. The current approaches have failed to reflect the real progression of conditions like scoliosis. A child can move from moderate to severe curvature of the spine within a matter of months, yet they remain in the same place on the waiting list. The waiting lists are not adapting quickly enough.”
“Are CHI and the HSE actively identifying children who fit the criteria for outsourcing care overseas? We already know what waiting means within this context. It means pain. It means deterioration. It means a child's condition becoming more severe, more difficult to treat and more life-limiting. Of course, as in the horrific case of Harvey Morrison Sherratt, it can mean death. This month, we already heard about the tragic death of Chloe Maher. Chloe did not receive the surgical treatment she needed in time and she aged out of the child system and entered into the adult spinal treatment system. Chloe may have died as an adult, but it was the failure to provide her care in a timely manner as a child that ultimately will have led to her death.”
“I want to address the ongoing issue of waiting lists. There has only been a drop of four in the last year, so there are still 229 children on the waiting list for surgery. At the same time, the number of children who have a date for surgery has dropped from 16 to 11 and the number of surgeries carried out has dropped from 87 to 68. Those figures are shocking when we are committed to improving the waiting list management. What is the reason for this and why are the HSE and CHI so unable to address the issue of waiting list management? It is clear that waiting list management still has not been grappled with and addressed in any meaningful way. How can parents have any faith in the upcoming inquiry when the management of waiting lists cannot be managed well and when they remain totally untransparent?”
“When complexity is not properly defined and accounted for, it is not prioritised, and when it is not prioritised, children and families are left waiting. In terms of an inquiry, they could also be left being excluded. One of the most glaring issues is the absence of a clear definition of "complexity" when it comes to scoliosis. I would love to know what the departmental guidelines will be in relation to this scoping exercise around defining what complex scoliosis actually is and means as a condition because that definition does not currently exist. Without that definition, there is a real risk that many of the families will be left out of the inquiry, so it is vital that that definition be agreed upon with patient advocates and that it be both comprehensive and inclusive so that the inquiry reaches the widest number of affected children.”
“I welcome the Minister of State. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the proposed regulations under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the scoping exercises that will be under way in 2026. Right now, children with spinal bifida and scoliosis are being failed, not just in care delivery, but in how their needs are defined, measured and, ultimately, understood. I have been in touch with patient advocates and advocacy groups on this issue. There is significant pain and frustration about the scandalous failure to treat children suffering from spinal conditions. Children with spinal bifida and scoliosis often present with overlapping multifaceted needs, including orthopaedic, neurological and psychological needs, but far too often, they are treated as if they fall neatly into one category. They simply do not.”
“It would be great to hear if we are bringing forward provisions or taking any measures that are attempting to change and alter Ireland's long-held and foundational position on the ECHR because we believe that some people as asylum seekers deserve more or fewer rights than our ordinary citizens.”
“Maybe linked to that is the question as to whether we believe in the universality of the international human rights framework, which the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR, was designed to uphold, or whether we believe that some people have more rights than others, and whether we should prioritise different people based on where they are from in the context of the rights they can access. Of course, Article 3 of the ECHR is the article in respect of which Ireland has taken two interstate cases - the only interstate cases that Ireland has taken against the British Government. The first was on the hooded men case from the 1970s in the North and the second was on the Tories' awful Legacy Act.”
“I commend Senator Boyhan on this well thought-out amendment, particularly the reference to "the European Convention on Human Rights, and the UN Charter". This legislation is one of the biggest changes we will see to the asylum process in Ireland since the early 2000s. It is crucially important, particularly in light of the Minister's decision to sign the Danish letter in December, which seeks to explore a political declaration on potentially withdrawing or changing the provisions around Article 3, which is the protection of the right against inhumane and degrading treatment, and Article 8, the right to family life, in the ECHR, which I am concerned about. With this in mind, this is a sensible amendment.”
“As the Minister said, that is not what we are implying at all. We know that not every child coming into the State would automatically be granted asylum. For clarification, that is not what this is about. This is about taking into consideration the entire process. We are talking about the question of the suitability of detention and so on in terms of specific vulnerabilities. I do not think this is a controversial amendment in any way. If we are all on the same page about the protection and safeguarding of children and minors, then it seems to be uncontroversial to have this included. Will the Minister explain what hindrance this would have on the process when the Bill is passed? What parts of this amendment would hinder how the Minister imagines this legislation will be implemented?”
“We might consider bringing a different amendment on Report Stage to look at instilling the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in this legislation. We would all agree that the ratified UN treaty is something that we would be hoping to instil in all legislation as it relates to children.”
“On amendment No. 21, I appreciate that, as the Minister said, the best interest of the child is mentioned in other parts of the Bill. For this amendment, we had consultation with the Ombudsman for Children and that is why it worded as it is. We have not just picked these six categories off the top of our heads. Surely a seventh category could be added, with any other factors taken into account should the Minister feel it is limiting. Perhaps that is something that could be looked into on Report Stage. The Minister referenced a binding obligation of the State towards the rights of the child anyway, if I understood his contribution correctly. We obviously have the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.”