Justice Minister Helen McEntee of the European Union (EU) will inform the Oireachtas justice committee that up to 80% of asylum applications will be completed within three months under new legislation. Her briefing to the committee regarding the new EU migration agreement that the coalition decided to accept indicates this will result in asylum seekers spending less duration in state-funded housing and a higher probability of repatriation.
McEntee warns that should Ireland not accept the pact, it could become a more attractive destination for asylum seekers. This, in her opinion, would almost certainly increase the inflow, while simultaneously prevents the country from utilizing shared resources and responsibility mechanisms. This could significantly restrict Ireland’s ability to repatriate people to their countries of origin, causing more people to stay within the asylum process for extended periods.
There has been resistance to the pact, which the Government hopes to adopt by 2026, from politicians across the political spectrum. Despite the government promoting the pact as a route to a just and expedient immigration system, the proposal to ratify it in the coming week is encountering growing pushback in anticipation of Dáil and Seanad votes.
McEntee will present a summary of the pact, which includes nine interlinked directives and regulations. She stresses the significant risks associated with declining to participate. The challenges posed by migration and asylum are inescapable, according to McEntee, and cannot be solved by isolated actions by individual states in a globally interconnected world.
McEntee will highlight the asylum procedures regulation as an element of the pact that facilitates more efficient and impartial processing of applications throughout the EU. This includes expedited border procedures for certain individuals, including those from nations with low asylum approval rates. Under this policy, the processing time for denied applicants would be two to three months and six months for first-time applications under ordinary procedures.
She will assure the committee that there are adequate safeguards and appeal processes under the regulation. In conclusion, this regulation will ensure a swift resolution, be it approval or rejection, of applicants’ claims, McEntee will affirm to the committee.
She is set to explain that the agreement comprises a new screening rule which is implemented when a person infiltrates the EU unlawfully or is discovered unauthorised in a member nation. The individual will then face a screening process within a week, encompassing identification, health and security assessments and fingerprint documentation, in addition to being recorded in the EU’s Eurodac database. This database permits countries to verify if the person has already submitted an asylum application in another EU nation.
Once this procedure is complete, the individual will be either inducted into the asylum process or sent back from whence they came. She will also explain to the committee an additional new rule concerning the Eurodac database, which holds particular significance for Ireland due to its high levels of ‘secondary movement’ – whereby an individual has entered Ireland via another member country. This rule extends the system to accommodate the gathering of facial imagery and fingerprints, with the fingerprinting age reduced to six years upwards.
She will express that these changes are designed to provide “heightened protection for children at risk”, and that utilising this information will “assist in returning secondary movers to the appropriate member state”. She will suggest that the alignment of eligibility for refugee status will decrease the appeal for applicants to shift from one member state to another, terming this a “beneficial development for Ireland”.
Addressing the committee, she will stress that managing external borders and repatriating those lacking the right to remain in the EU will be enacted with “utmost regard for human rights”. She will explicate a new Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR), set to supersede the existing system for determining which member state has responsibility for an asylum application, presently known as the Dublin III regulation.
“Ireland stands to gain from a more efficient system and process, enabling us to pinpoint and return secondary movers to the right member state responsible, thus freeing up our own system to aid those seeking international protection promptly and effectively” she is expected to assert. To offset this, the regulation will include a “compulsory solidarity mechanism” – a feature that has drawn objections from certain critics of the pact. This mechanism establishes a “solidarity pool” to mitigate the effect on frontline states, like Italy, Greece, and Cyprus, where the majority of asylum seekers arrive. The pool comprises nations accepting relocated individuals or making a financial contribution as an alternative.
Ms. McEntee is set to announce that Ireland’s portion of this, calculated using present data, is projected to involve 648 relocations or nearly €13 million a year, with states having room for manoeuvre in terms of how they face this challenge. She will underscore that this doesn’t imply Ireland will be required to accommodate an extra 648 applicants. Instead, this could entail relocations, a monetary investment, countering against cases that weren’t returned, or an amalgamation of all these elements.