Legal concerns have been raised about aspects of forthcoming legislation governing international protection applicants. The International Protection Bill 2025 is intended to replace the International Protection Act 2015, as the State goes about implementing the EU Asylum and Migration Pact, due to come into effect next June.
On Wednesday, organisations working with asylum seekers and migrants gathered at Leinster House to discuss the implications of what they see as significant gaps in the proposed legislation.
“We are so far away from having such important details [in the Bill] in relation to age verification of children, places of detention, access to legal representation – none of this has been defined yet,” said Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon, who organised the meeting.
Members of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), the Irish Refugee Council, the Law Society of Ireland and the Ombudsman for Children scrutinised the General Scheme of the IP Bill, published in April.
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The Law Society made a submission on that general scheme earlier this year. Its director of policy, Brian Hunt, said the Bill was “very significant” in terms of its scale and what it sets out to achieve.
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Mr Hunt focused primarily on legal counselling, a concept introduced by the EU Asylum and Migration Pact, which is not formally defined in either the pact or the general scheme of the Bill.
The pact requires the State to provide free legal counselling to applicants at the first instance stage – an applicant’s first substantive interview with the International Protection Office – and free legal assistance and representation at an appeal stage.
The IP Bill provides for free legal counselling at first instance, but, according to IHREC, does not guarantee free legal advice or representation, or specify who is to provide legal counselling.
Mr Hunt referenced a statement from a Department of Justice official at an Oireachtas Justice Committee hearing last month, which stated that the Bill “will not provide for any reduction in the legal advice and legal aid services”, and described legal counselling as an “additional service” that is “not intended to replace legal advice or legal aid”.
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“While this is assuring,” Mr Hunt said, “we would expect to see those principles spelt out very clearly in the Bill.”
Stephen Collins, a senior solicitor with IHREC, raised concerns around disparities between the requirements laid out in the pact, and the provisions put forward in the general scheme of the Bill.
“Where the pact allows the State to restrict the rights and freedoms of people applying for international protection, the general scheme of the Bill goes further than that,” Mr Collins said. “And conversely, where the pact requires that the State protect the rights of international protection applicants, the Bill does not go far enough.”
The pact calls for an Independent Monitoring Mechanism (IMM) to monitor those rights of IP applicants, and ensure the minimum standards set out by the EU’S Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) are met. It says the IMM must be independent and adequately resourced, and have the power to investigate rights violations.
The International Protection Bill proposes the establishment of a Chief Inspector of Asylum Border Procedures. The IHREC argue this role fails to meet FRA’s core requirement of independence, as the chief inspector would be appointed and potentially removed by the Minister for Justice, and their conditions, including remuneration, set by the Minister for Public Expenditure.
Laws around detention, Mr Collins said, related to the right to liberty protected in the Irish Constitution. The pact outlines detention as being permissible only as a measure of last resort, when less coercive alternatives cannot be effectively applied. The Bill, the IHREC says, refers to detention as a last resort but fails to set out explicit alternatives.
