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Cabinet backs ‘robust’ revamp of asylum laws

The Government has approved a National Implementation Plan (NIP) for the EU’s Asylum and Migration Pact that will be submitted to the European Commission.  

The pact is aimed at harmonising and improving the management of migration across the EU.  

Ireland has opted in to seven of the deal’s legislative measures. 

The Department of Justice says that the NIP will ensure Ireland’s readiness for when the pact comes into effect in June 2026. 

Decisions ‘taking too long’ 

Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said that the Irish plan would ultimately result in “the most significant reform of Irish asylum laws in decades”. 

"The current system is not working effectively, with decisions taking far too long. We need to ensure that applications are processed in a swift fashion,” he added. 

Under the NIP, there will be a mandatory 12-week time limit under the new border-procedure mechanism. 

This provides for completed first-instance and appeal decisions for those applicants from countries of origin with an application success rate of 20% or less across the EU, those who have no documents or false documents, and those who are deemed a security risk. 

“This provision will go a long way in making our immigration laws more robust in the future,” the minister said. 

Single decision 

The plan also provides for the replacement of the current international-protection decision process with what the department describes as “a streamlined single first-instance decision” on refugee status, subsidiary protection, and return/permission to stay.  

There will also be a single appeal process for such decisions. 

Other measures in the plan include: 

• A new extended EuroDac (European asylum database) to track all irregular arrivals and asylum applications, reduce the age for taking of fingerprints to provide stronger protection for at-risk children, and to record additional data,
• The replacement of the Dublin Regulation with the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR) to improve systems for responsibility (returning applicants efficiently to the member state responsible for processing) and solidarity (supporting member states under migratory pressure),
• Investment in IT systems, staff recruitment, and training,
• New reception arrangements,
• Enhanced vulnerability and security screening,
• Legal counselling and legal-assistance systems to support applicants and ensure the legal sustainability of new processing systems,
• A new monitoring mechanism to ensure that the fundamental rights of applicants and migrants affected by the pact are upheld, and
• New legislation to replace the International Protection Act 2015 and elements of the Immigration Acts to underpin the new systems.