Ireland’s National Implementation Plan made publicly available

Screening and processing services are to be co-located in reception centres. This means that applicants will register their application, receive legal counselling, undergo vulnerability assessments and health checks, and do their first-instance and appeal interview in the same location.

Accommodation centres will be a mixture of private and State-owned centres. The focus is on developing State-owned accommodation and reducing reliance on commercial providers.

Processes for initial security and identity checks and registration on Eurodac for those who arrive at external borders and are refused leave to land, and who claim asylum are described. Those who come to Ireland over the land border and present at a designated reception centre to make an asylum claim will be deemed by law as having presented at a border.

All screening processes are to be completed within seven days, during which time applicants will be accommodated in designated accommodation. Once screening is complete, the applicant will be referred to one of four pathways: border procedure, standard procedure, basic needs, or unaccompanied minors. Applicants will be accommodated in accommodation centres based on their specific needs and entitlements.

The plan describes the new institutional arrangement that will replace the International Protection Office. The new process for international protection decisions will be a streamlined single first-instance decision on refugee status, subsidiary protection, and return/permission to stay, followed by a single appeal to cover refugee status, subsidiary protection, and return/permission to stay.

Under the Pact, there will be seven cohorts of asylum processing procedures with specific time frames for completion to first-instance decision:

• Standard procedure – 6 months
• Border and & accelerated procedures – 3 months (further 3 months to return where appropriate)
• AMMR (previously Dublin), inadmissible, subsequent applications & withdrawals – 2 months

The Dublin Regulation will also be replaced with the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR) to improve systems for returning applicants to the MS responsible for processing.

A new appeal structure will replace the existing International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT). There will be only one appeal after a first instance decision, including an appeal of a return decision.

The five types of appealable decisions are to:

• Reject an application as inadmissible.
• Reject an application as unfounded or manifestly unfounded in relation to both refugee and Subsidiary Protection status.
• Reject an application as implicitly withdrawn.
• Withdraw international protection.
• Issue a return decision in accordance with Article 37.

Ireland did not opt into the 2008 Returns Directive or the Pact Returns Border Procedure Regulation, but plans to align appropriately with the relevant provisions in domestic legislation.

The three routes to return are: voluntary departure, enforced deportation, and return under the new AMMR system, which replaces the current Dublin Regulation.

The NIP describes the commitment to establish an independent fundamental rights monitoring mechanism in accordance with the Screening Regulation and the Asylum Procedures Regulation. The Department of Justice noted that they are working with key stakeholders on a suitable mechanism for independent monitoring.