Implementation of the Pact must be done in a manner that ensures asylum seekers’ human rights. It requires domestic legislation by mid-2026 and presents significant infrastructural and resourcing challenges.
About the author
Dr Caroline Sweeney is a Senior Parliamentary Researcher in the Library and Research Service, specialising in law.
Ireland owes obligations to refugees and asylum seekers under international and EU law. A refugee is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. An asylum seeker is looking for international protection (refugee status or subsidiary protection) outside of their country of origin/habitual residence whose application has yet to be determined.
Due to a global upsurge in armed conflict and repression, significantly more asylum seekers have sought refuge in the EU in recent years. The EU’s Common European Asylum System is meant to ensure that asylum seekers receive fair and equal treatment across the EU. Solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility for asylum seekers are key principles. Nevertheless, frontline Member States at the EU’s external borders, including Greece and Italy, face a disproportionate burden. This is largely due to the Dublin III Regulation, which identifies the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application. This is typically the Member State of first entry. The existing system’s shortcomings triggered a long and contentious legislative and policy reform process at EU level. This resulted in the adoption of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum in 2024. The Pact has ten core legislative acts (see Table 1).
Ireland’s position
As set out in Table 1, Ireland opted-in to the core legislative acts comprising the Pact, apart from the Return Border Procedure and Screening Regulations. Ireland cannot opt-in to these Regulations because they are Schengen measures and Ireland is not part of the Schengen area. There are no internal border controls within the Schengen Area, which is comprised of the EU Member States, apart from Ireland and Cyprus, as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Despite being unable to opt-in to the Schengen measures in the Pact, the 33rd Government undertook to align national law with these measures insofar as is possible. The Regulation creating the EU Agency for Asylum (EUAA) and the Resettlement Regulation are already in effect. Domestic legislation is needed to transpose (incorporate) the remaining acts into national law by approximately mid-2026 when they become applicable.
Implementation
To simplify implementation of the complex legislative instruments comprising the Pact, the European Commission published a comprehensive Common Implementation Plan (CIP). It organises the actions that Member States, the Commission and EU agencies must undertake to implement their obligations under these instruments into ten fundamental building blocks. As outlined in Figure 1, these blocks have considerable overlaps.
Implementation building blocks Source: European Commission (2024)
The CIP also identifies EU resources that Member States can access to support implementation.
The CIP requires each Member State to submit a draft National Implementation Plan (NIP) to the Commission by October 2024, and a final version by 12 December 2024.
Figure 2 provides a timeline of the key milestones that EU Member States, the Commission and the Council must meet during the two-year implementation period.
Implementation building blocks Source: European Commission (2024)
Domestic implementation
States enjoy some flexibility when transposing the Pact into national law in recognition of domestic differences, for example, Ireland’s omission from the Schengen Area. Implementation will require significant legislative, policy, operational and infrastructural changes, including the repeal of the International Protection Act 2015. The Department of Justice advised in July 2024 that an inter-departmental board has been established to oversee the implementation of Ireland’s obligations under the CIP’s ten building blocks.
Key changes for Ireland
The Asylum Procedure Regulation (APR), the Asylum Migration Management Regulation (AMMR), and the Recast Eurodac Regulation will have significant implications for day-to-day work. The APR establishes binding time-limits for making:
- inadmissibility decisions on all applications (two months);
- first-instance decisions on admissible applications examined on their merits under the ordinary procedure (six months);
- first-instance, appeal and return decisions under a new accelerated ‘Border Procedure’ (three months).
Ireland must decide a time-limit for determining appeals and provide for an independent appeals body.
Border Procedure
The Border Procedure will be mandatory for applicants who pose a security risk, applicants with false/no official documents, and applicants from countries with an EU-wide asylum application approval rate of 20% or lower. Unaccompanied minors are excluded unless they pose a security threat. Vulnerable applicants are also excluded if they cannot be guaranteed appropriate supports (APR, Recital 61 and Article 42).
Applicants will have to stay at designated facilities and Member States must have ‘adequate capacity’ to process a minimum number of Border Procedure applications. For Ireland, this is 464 applications at any given time on an inflow-outflow basis, and 1,856 applications per year. The Government has indicated that it will probably be able to provide for capacity significantly beyond this mandatory minimum, which is set at EU level.
The AMMR obliges asylum seekers to apply for international protection in the first EU Member State they enter. Otherwise, they will not receive full reception conditions. The AMMR establishes a migration management cycle whereby the Commission identifies Member States who are under migratory pressure each year. Member States must make contributions to a Solidarity Pool, which are determined based on the State’s population and GDP. Contributions can include accepting relocated asylum seekers OR making a financial contribution OR a combination of solidarity measures.
Solidarity Mechanism
Ireland’s annual contribution is currently set at 648 relocations per annum OR a financial contribution of €12.96 million per annum OR a combination of solidarity measures.
Human rights challenges
The Pact must be implemented at the domestic level in compliance with the State’s human rights obligations under EU and international law. Figure 3 below outlines some of the key implementation challenges for Ireland.
Border procedure: human rights issues for Ireland
When implementing the Border Procedure, the State will need to address problems with Ireland’s existing accelerated application process for certain categories of asylum seekers. Currently, these applicants:
- must complete their questionnaire and disclose sensitive information in the International Protection Office’s public reception area (privacy issues);
- are not afforded access to free legal advice when completing the questionnaire;
- may experience problems with interpretation; and
- may struggle to obtain vulnerability assessments within the accelerated timeframe.
In implementing the Border Procedure, the State will also need to:
- build/acquire designated accommodation facilities for applicants;
- ensure applicants receive essential services and safeguards, including:
- health and vulnerability assessments,
- legal counselling,
- age assessments (for unaccompanied minors), and
- education (for children);
- implement an independent human rights monitoring mechanism.
Human rights advocates stress that legal counselling for Border Procedure applicants, including in group settings, should not result in a removal of free individualised legal advice at first instance stage.
Additional human rights-related implementation issues for Ireland
When implementing the Recast Eurodac Regulation, the State will have to adhere to child safeguarding and GDPR regulations, including when collecting and sharing personal and biometric data. Some commentators have expressed concerns that the Pact could permit the detention of asylum seekers in practice, contrary to their rights to liberty and freedom of movement. In response, the Department of Justice confirmed that it is exploring alternatives to detention. However, officials indicated that, as is currently the case, individual applicants may still be detained in certain circumstances, for example, where they pose a security threat.
Adhering to the recast Reception Conditions Directive will also pose a challenge. The High Court has already found that the State has violated EU law by failing to provide for the basic needs of all asylum seekers.
More generally, critics argue that the Pact will not ease the pressure on frontline Member States because the AMMR permits Member States to demonstrate ‘solidarity’ by providing financial contributions instead of accepting relocated asylum seekers. A related concern is that the Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation permits Member States to obtain derogations (temporary exemptions) from some of their asylum obligations under EU law during crisis situations, including exceptional situations of mass arrivals that render their asylum system dysfunctional. Critics argue that these derogations could result in the Member State contravening their obligations under the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights and certain international treaties.
Research Matters
Research Matters, Key Issues for the 34th Dáil and 27th Seanad is a collection of articles about topics that Members will likely be grappling with over the coming years.
Compiled by expert researchers from the Parliamentary Research Service, each article identifies ways in which Members, as legislators and parliamentarians, can engage meaningfully with the issues outlined.
Further reading
Get more insight with further suggested reading from the Parliamentary Research Service: ‘EU Migration and Asylum Pact’ (June, 2024). This Note discusses the EU Migration and Asylum Pact and includes background information on the relevant legal and policy context, as well as an examination of the individual legal instruments that comprise the Pact.