Pa Daly
Ceist:1. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Justice to provide an update on the upgrading of Tralee courthouse. [17367/24]
Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions
Court Accommodation
My question to the Minister pertains to the built heritage of Tralee town courts service and the future of business in Tralee town centre. Will the Minister provide an update on the upgrading plans, if there are any, for Tralee Courthouse or court facilities?
The Deputy will be aware that the provision of improved court facilities at Tralee is one of the Courts Service projects included in the national development plan, NDP. The existing courthouse on Ashe Street in Tralee comprises only two courtrooms and it lacks the facilities one would expect to find in a modern county town courthouse. I am informed the plan is for a new courthouse comprising four courtrooms and related facilities that are necessary to meet future requirements. As the Deputy knows, there is not sufficient space within the existing site to provide a courthouse building on the scale envisaged.
As we have previously discussed, in December 2023 the Courts Service completed the purchase of a portion of the Island of Geese site from Kerry County Council for the sum of €160,000. The Courts Service is currently being registered as owner of the site with the Property Registration Authority. A modern court facility will be built on this site. The Island of Geese site represents a great opportunity to develop a modern, fit-for-purpose courthouse in Tralee. Ahead of the next phase of the NDP, the Courts Service will seek to advance design work on the new courthouse. This will ensure that once funding becomes available, the Courts Service will be in a position to move quickly.
In budget 2024, €185 million was allocated to the Courts Vote overall, including capital funding of €67 million. This sum covers public private partnership, PPP, payments for eight courthouses as well as funding for the significant technological upgrades taking place across the courts, including the ongoing Wi-Fi upgrade and video court expansion.
The Government has invested substantial additional resources into the Courts Service in recent years and I can assure the Deputy that the Government will continue to support the Courts Service in its work to create an environment where justice can be administered efficiently and accessibly for all citizens.
I thank the Minister for the reply. The Minister is absolutely correct to say there only two courtrooms in the current building and the plans they have are for four. There has been a big development recently in that An Post has recently obtained planning permission for a sorting depot on the outskirts of Tralee town. All along when we were asking for improved facilities on the existing site, we were being told that it was shoehorned into a particular place, there were no facilities for expansion and that was the end of the argument. The Minister is correct to say that the conveyancing work is going through and the design work is there but the crucial part of the Minister's answer is "once funding becomes available". The answer to the Minister's answer is that no funding is available either this year or next year or the year after for Tralee Courthouse. That is my understanding. That is why the An Post depot becoming available presents a significant cost saving opportunity in compliance with Tralee town centre and the town centre first plan. It is also in compliance in the context of carbon footprint, which is obviously dear to the heart of the Government. In my view this should be taken into account when reconsidering the plan to relocate.
The Deputy has raised this with me recently in relation to the An Post site. I have inquired and have been informed by the Courts Service that the search for a suitable site has been ongoing. It has been challenging. This was prior to the completion of the sale of the Island of Geese site, which was back in December last year. It had been ongoing for many years stretching back to the 2000s, and during that period a number of sites were considered for the purpose of a courthouse. The An Post site was among the sites that were considered but it was not for sale during that period. Obviously only sites that were for sale could be considered.
It came to the Courts Service attention only as recently as March of this year that Kerry County Council granted planning permission for a new An Post delivery service unit at Monavalley in Tralee and that An Post may at some time in the future put its current premises behind the Ashe Street courthouse up for sale. We are talking about a lot of ifs and buts. We had looked at this and it was not up for sale. It is now potentially for sale but it is not yet up for sale and we have already bought a site.
It is not fair to say there is no money to develop it at all. There is no money in the capital plan to develop the actual building but there is money there to develop the plan so that when we reopen the NDP for 2027 onwards, we will be seeking funding and we will have progressed far enough to need it at that stage.
There are two points arising out of the Minister's answer. The first point is the budget for a new courthouse is about €18 million. The Minister referred to €160,000. That is a very small fraction. The second point is that the Minister mentioned the Island of Geese, which is the old Denny factory site right in the centre of town where it is proposed to put the new court building. That was gifted to Tralee Town Council back in 2014. Big plans were made for social housing and for a community centre. There were some 160 different suggestions as to what could be put in there but ten years later it is vacant and idle. There is nothing in there at the moment apart from a kind of a garden. Now is the opportunity. An Post has planning permission and it will be moving out by February of next year. The Department would save the State a lot of money. I know the Minister for Justice is not the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and that she does not have any control over what An Post chooses to do with its building, but I suggest that the Minister would ask the relevant Minister, I believe it is the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Ryan, if that portion of ground would be open for sale to the Courts Service. Then the site there at the moment could be used for another facility, perhaps for An Garda Síochána.
The challenge here is that the search for a site has been going on since the early 2000s. The site referred to by the Deputy was not for sale and it is actually not up for sale now. I appreciate that it might come up for sale at some point in the future. It is not up for sale now and we do have a site that has actually been acquired. It is a portion of the site and the decision was taken by Kerry County Council. It was voted on by the members. What they do with the rest of the site is obviously a matter for the local authority. Whatever decision is taken is up to it. We have a site and we now have the ability to get on with building and developing a new courthouse. We will develop those plans so that when it gets to the point where we can look at the ceilings again for 2027 and beyond for the NDP, we will have a plan and we have the site bought. Otherwise we would be waiting for a potential site to come up for sale that might not come up for sale. When we do not know exactly what the plans are, and having waited since 2000, to pause something we know we can progress now for something that might not come up I just do not see as the way forward and I do not see that as the ideal solution here.
If it was up for sale?
But it is not.
EU Agreements
Gino Kenny
Ceist:2. Deputy Gino Kenny asked the Minister for Justice if she is aware that over 160 civil society organisations from across the European Union have issued a statement against the EU migration pact stating it will have devastating implications for the right to international protection in the EU and greenlight abuses across Europe, including racial profiling, default de facto detention and pushbacks and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17849/24]
There has been lots of commentary about the EU migration pact. Over 160 civil society organisations have stated that it will have a detrimental effect on migrants' rights across the EU so I would like to hear the Minister's thoughts.
We have just had a good debate and a number of questions at the Joint Committee on Justice on this matter. I start by assuring the Deputy that I am keenly aware that the right to asylum is a fundamental right in the EU guaranteed by the treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and confirmed by the proposals under the pact on migration and asylum. The EU asylum and migration pact will ensure Europe acts as a collective in terms of how migration, and in particular asylum, is managed to ensure the system is firmer but also that it continues to be fair.
Protections in relation to fundamental rights for international protection applicants are provided for throughout the process with additional safeguards for children and unaccompanied children, including legal representation and a multidisciplinary age assessment. Additional safeguards have been also incorporated in relation to families with minors to ensure their processing is prioritised once admitted into the border procedure and that they always reside in facilities that comply with the reception conditions directive.
Of course, the people of Ireland are deeply conscious of our moral and legal responsibility to those fleeing war and persecution. The pact will accelerate the processing of international protection applications. Those who are entitled to international protection will be granted it and it will make it easier to return those found not to be entitled to protection. It will introduce greater security checking of applicants. It will reduce the volume of secondary movement and make it easier to transfer applicants to the member state responsible. It will reduce the amount of time people spend in state-provided accommodation and support the return of people found not to be entitled to protection. The asylum and migration pact has therefore been designed to establish a common approach to migration and asylum that is based on solidarity, responsibility and, importantly, respect for human rights. That will not change if we opt into it, as I hope we do. This is about making sure that those who genuinely need our protection can access it. A point was raised earlier, namely, that just because the system is condensed or made faster does not mean that the rights of individuals are not in any way affected. People's individual rights will be protected even if it is through an accelerated procedure, which is being proposed in this directive.
There has been lots of commentary about this pact. Those on the left will be voting against it while those on the far right will be voting against it for very different reasons. The issue of asylum and finding sanctuary in the EU was tainted well before this. A toxic mix of xenophobia, hatred and division is being stoked up by those on the far right who are trying to whip up division not only in Ireland but across the EU. I believe this pact erodes the fundamental pillars of the EU, which are about human rights. This degrades human rights in terms of immigrants' rights in coming to the EU.
You could say the fact that there are people on the extreme left and right with opposing views and we are somewhere in the middle means that we may have got it somewhat right. I assure the Deputy, and I speak on my own behalf but also - I think - on behalf of the vast majority of people in this country, that we are and have always been a welcoming country. I believe our colleagues, friends and member states across the EU are very much in that space as well. However, we need to ensure we have a system that works and is fair to those who genuinely need it. Those who do not have a right to apply for asylum are creating a backlog and challenges for those who genuinely need to access protection. We need a system that protects and supports those who need to access protection but also creates legal pathways and routes. While the migration and asylum pact is specifically looking at those seeking international protection, we are developing and working it hand in hand with other measures on which the EU is very much focused, such as looking at the root causes of why people are moving and looking at how we can have greater levels of legal migration. We have full employment in this country. We need more people to come here and work so there are a number of other things we need to do and we are doing working collectively to try to address the need of people to come here.
I agree. I think Ireland is a very welcoming place. Let us hope it stays that way. When you drill down into this pact, you see a semblance of, for want of a better word, internment of adults and sometimes children. Human rights advocates are saying that migration is being weaponised by those who want to malign migrants coming to the EU. This is a bad day for human rights, particularly in the European sense. This is a dangerous crossroads in terms of the rights of everybody in the EU. The basic pillar of the EU back in the 1950s was the rights of everybody regardless of where you come from and the colour of your skin but this pact is a backwards step in terms of human rights for everybody who wants to come to the EU to work.
It is important to be clear that we are not proposing to detain people. While we will have a border procedure and people coming through that procedure will be in specific accommodation, they will not be detained. We will not have fences or people in a prison-type facility. That is not what we are proposing here and I do not think it is what we should ever propose. However, we have structure and a system that works. If we do not have a system that can process people quickly, get through applications quickly and quickly identify who needs our help, it is much harder to get to those who genuinely do. It is the case that people will seek to come to Ireland or the rest of the EU for economic reasons, which is why it is really important we have separate routes and separate mechanisms for them to do that. There are separate conversations that are happening but very much in parallel with this. This is about those seeking asylum. If you have a system that does not protect those seeking asylum, we are not fulfilling our obligations. The pact itself does not erode people's rights and ability to apply for asylum. It just makes sure we can do it in a more efficient and effective way that benefits those who are genuine.
An Garda Síochána
Pa Daly
Ceist:3. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Justice the projected number of trainees who will begin training and will attest through Garda training for this calendar year and if any changes to the training are proposed. [17368/24]
Will there be any changes to the number of trainees or the training model proposed? Could the Minister let me know the projected number of trainees who will begin in Templemore for Garda training in this calendar year?
This year, I have provided a budget allocation of over €2.35 billion to An Garda Síochána. This is a 25% increase on 2020 and will allow for the sustained recruitment of Garda recruits in 2024. I have taken a number of measures to support increased recruitment into An Garda Síochána. This includes a 66% increase in the training allowance and increasing the age of entry from 35 to 50. The Government has also agreed to increase the mandatory retirement age for Garda members from 60 to 62. I will be bringing forward legislation on that very shortly. Recruitment is now gathering real momentum and the number of recruits in the Garda training college continue to increase. A total of 746 trainees entered the college in 2023. That was the highest intake in any year since 2018.
There are currently three classes in training in the Garda College, two having entered in 2023 and one earlier this month. These trainees are expected to attest in June, September and December. Based on the current numbers, indications are that between 600 and 700 new gardaí will attest this year. That is based on the figures from last year.
As the Deputy knows, the Garda College was closed to new recruits during Covid and it is only since the pandemic restrictions were lifted that recruitment has fully resumed. While Templemore did not fully close during the pandemic, and we are very grateful to the members and trainees there who persisted with their training, recruitment of new members into the organisation was curtailed. A total of 185 new recruits entered the college earlier this month, the first class of 2024. This represents the highest intake since Covid. Three further intakes are planned for July, September and December of this year. Based on the number of applicants and the numbers targeted for the coming intakes, it is envisaged that attestations will increase to between 800 and 1,000 in 2025. It is anticipated that the number of Garda members will begin to grow steadily throughout 2024. I expect the number of Garda members to grow during 2024 until we can reach the target of 15,000 and then move beyond.
The Government has agreed to take all necessary steps to support recruitment into An Garda Síochána. To that end, my Department is working with Garda management and the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform in relation to further measures to address the issues of recruitment and retention. We are continuing to work on mitigating various resourcing challenges, including but not limited to actions such as the establishment of the Garda training steering group.
Insofar as recruit training is concerned, there are no immediate plans to change the current programme. Templemore is linked closely with the University of Limerick in compliance with the Education and Training Act and both institutions operate institutional-level quality assurance systems. However, as I have said previously, nothing is off the table in terms of potential future changes.
I hear what the Minister is saying with regard to approaching the figure of 15,000.
As the Minister knows, the Joint Committee on Justice went to Templemore. Apart from the number attesting, there are about 140 postgraduates undertaking courses there. It has been mentioned to me in passing that Templemore is stuck for space and it is seeking to obtain other venues to carry out more specialised training. Has the college ever considered, in order to accelerate the numbers in a quicker way, opening up another training facility to attest gardaí or else to undertake more of the hybrid training model that we saw to some extent during Covid?
Gardaí are telling me that they feel stretched. For example, County Kerry is down 20 gardaí on the position prior to Covid and they are stretched in trying to maintain the level of service they had then. In February, the available strength was 13,748, which has decreased since December 2010, when it was 14,377.
The issue to date has not been space. The classes have been incrementally moving upwards and the most recent class of 186 is the highest we have had, so it is not the case that we do not have enough space in Templemore. In the last year or two, it has actually been about gathering the momentum so we can get to the point where we are nearly reaching the figure of 200 and beyond. That is not to say we are not looking at other options, and that could potentially include training on another site, different types of hybrid training and different elements of the course being done elsewhere. Given the fact we work with the University of Limerick and this is an institutional level quality assurance system, it is important that we do not dilute or change that in any way, shape or form. This is what the Garda training steering group is looking at with regard to whether there are other options that we have not been using to increase the overall number.
To date, it has not been the lack of space that has curtailed us. It has been getting us to the point where those high numbers are starting to come through the PAS process. It is a question of passing all of the different stages and the fitness tests in the higher numbers that we have had to date. However, we still need to look at potentially expanding our scope, which is what we are doing now.
What is coming down the tracks is that the large cohort of gardaí who attested in the early 1990s will be coming to the end of their natural cycle of employment. There are also the resignations and other retirements that are coming up. It is difficult when the maximum going through is 600 to 700 this year and was 700 last year. To increase to 15,000 may be on the horizon but to increase it more in order to keep pace with the level of population increase is going to be very difficult for any government to achieve. That is why another training centre could be considered.
There is one final question regarding the Garda Reserve, which is an issue that we have spoken about before. Has the recruitment campaign started to try to achieve greater visibility of gardaí on the streets?
There are a number of things that we need to do here. I have referenced some of them, for example, increasing the age at which people can apply so we have even more applying; making sure that those who want to stay on can do so, which is why increasing the retirement age is very important; and making sure that those who want to become members but potentially cannot do so because of the financial cost see an increase in the availability allowance. This is something we need to look at again coming up to this year's budget. It is also about making sure that we have the space when we need it. This is why the Garda training steering group will be looking at whether there are other measures that we need to address with regard to hybrid training and whether having another venue would potentially encourage people who are further away from Templemore to go to the college, particularly if it was closer to them.
All of these things are being worked through, as well as other measures, with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to see if we can address some of the issues that gardaí have raised. We need to make sure there is no reason for people to leave that we cannot address. The exit interviews and the strategies that we are applying post the exit interviews are to make sure that where people have raised concerns, we are addressing them in a multitude of different ways. There is no one solution here; there are many different things.
The Minister is not ruling out another venue.
No, I would not rule out another venue.
EU Agreements
Mattie McGrath
Ceist:4. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Justice if the Government intends to hold a referendum on whether the people agree to opt in or opt out of the EU pact on migration and asylum; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17720/24]
I ask the Minister if the Government intends to hold a referendum on whether the people agree to opt in or opt out of the EU pact on migration and asylum; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
I can assure the Deputy that I am fully committed to ensuring that our international protection system is robust and rules-based and that our borders are protected. A core part of my role as Minister for Justice is, of course, to uphold the Constitution at all times and I will always do so.
I believe the new EU asylum and migration pact is a game changer for Ireland. It was agreed in December last and approved by the European Parliament last month. The pact was carefully negotiated over several years to significantly reform the current approach to migration and asylum both in Ireland and across the entire EU. It will do so by providing a strong cohesive legislative framework to address the challenges we are facing in this area. It will speed up the processing of international protection applicants so we have a firm and fair system. It will make it easier to return those who are found not to be entitled to protection. It will introduce greater security checking of applicants. It will reduce the volume of secondary movement and make it easier to transfer applicants to the member states responsible. It will reduce the time people spend in State-provided accommodation and support the return of people found not to be entitled to protection.
All of that requires systemic co-operation and we cannot manage it on our own. We need co-operation and we need other countries to be willing to accept people who should not be processed here. The pact offers us all in Europe a real opportunity to work together to design a system that is fair but firm, that is based on a fair sharing of responsibility and that works for everyone.
Opting into the pact is a very positive opportunity for Ireland to achieve co-ordinated and wide-reaching reform in a key area of public interest. I can assure the Deputy that the pact does not contain any provisions that require a constitutional referendum. As measures governed by Protocol 21 of the EU treaty, the request by Ireland to opt in requires the prior approval of both Houses under Article 29.4.7° of the Constitution. The Government recently approved my proposal to seek that approval and I intend to do so next week, when we will have debates in both this House and the Seanad.
As I said, Ireland has the opportunity to opt out or opt in thanks to the people voting a second time on the Lisbon treaty, and we achieved that the last time. Even a moderate like the Polish President, Donald Tusk, is saying he will not take any. The legal basis for Ireland to opt out of the migration treaty is contained under Lisbon, as I said. I believe this is a serious violation of our national sovereignty. The decision on who we want to accept would be made neither by the Irish authorities nor under Irish law but by unelected people in the European headquarters. That is a serious situation and is why the public are so worked up about this, rightly so. It cedes our sovereignty, and the Minister cannot say otherwise. The fact is that the Government will not put it to the people and allow the people to decide. It is passing it through both Houses of the Oireachtas, where it has a contrived majority and it knows it will get what it wants, and it will limit its time in committee. The people need to have their say on this. The people rightly feel that they have this right as a result of Lisbon II, when the Government of the day was forced to put the question to the people a second time.
As the Deputy said, the people voted for the Lisbon treaty. What they voted for was the right for Ireland to opt in. The only constitutional requirement following on from that vote is that both Houses would adopt or vote on any decision taken to opt into any measure. We have done that on one occasion in the last few weeks when, with regard to people smuggling or human trafficking, we opted to engage in a closer way with our colleagues in Europol and policing systems across the EU. What we are proposing to opt into here is an updating of a system that we are already a part of. We have been part of an asylum system in the EU for many years and it has not impacted our sovereignty in any way, shape or form. We have our own laws here and we apply them. What we are trying to do, though, is become more harmonised to make sure we do not have different systems operating across the EU and so we work collectively and are able to respond collectively. I believe that is the best way to respond to what is a challenging situation. Above all, it is the best way to make sure that people who genuinely need protection in the EU get it.
Ireland or any EU country can opt out of or opt into the pact. The stark reality of the EU migration pact, which is designed to streamline so-called migration policies and address the challenge of asylum seekers, is that Ireland is ceding control over its borders and, of course, immigration procedures. Slovakia has done an estimate of the cost if it does not take in the migrants and is forced to pay €20,000 each, and it estimates it would be €7.5 billion annually. Ireland's GDP is strong at the moment, thankfully, but much of it is due to the multinationals.
We will have to pay far more than Slovakia or other countries because of our strong GDP figures. These are totally uncharted waters, which is the reason we need the matter properly debated and accounted for. Will the Minister publish the Attorney General's advice regarding her decision not to proceed to have a referendum on this matter?
The Attorney General's advice is never published. In voting for the Lisbon treaty, we did so in the full knowledge that migration is an EU competence and that we can choose to opt into measures. We cannot opt out but we choose to opt in to these measures. There is nothing being forced upon us, so there is no need for a referendum.
With the figures we have for the distribution, if we were to apply this in the first year, with figures of either 648 people or €12,000,960, it would actually be cheaper for us to pay that sum than the current cost to us of processing and housing somebody for a year. That is if we take that particular timeline. When somebody comes here, processing and accommodation are a significant cost. We are talking here about a system that would mean people are here for less time. Therefore, the cost of processing and accommodating them would be much less. It should mean an overall decrease in the amount of money we spend on immigration.