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The Future of Asylum Law in Ireland
The Future of Asylum Law in Ireland
By Grace Given, SS Law and German & Eoin Jackson, SS Law
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The Direct Provision system of reception for asylum seekers has been one of the most controversial aspects of Ireland’s asylum law and policy framework. The system was alleged, by NGOs such as Amnesty International, to be in breach of numerous human rights obligations, both at an EU and international level. In 2021, the Government committed to ending the use of Direct Provision centres by 2024. This article will analyse the Government’s plan to transition from Direct Provision to a new reception and integration system, and will make recommendations as to what policies should be put in place to avoid future human rights violations.
Ending Direct Provision
Under the Government’s White Paper on ending Direct Provision, a two-stage integration process will be adopted to end the use of Direct Provision centres. In the first stage, an asylum seeker will be accommodated for a maximum period of 4 months in a state-owned ‘Reception and Integration Centre.’ During this period, a resident will be entitled to receive an allowance, open a bank account, and apply for a driving licence. In the second stage, applicants will be offered a range of accommodation options depending on their family status. Applicants will also be entitled to seek employment during this stage.
While these movements may seem positive, it leaves a number of gaps in the system, particularly once the transition to this new model is completed.
For example, the Government is currently in breach of the EU Directive 2013/33/EU (the “Reception Conditions Directive”) for failing to carry out vulnerability assessments on asylum seekers within 30 days of a person communicating their intention to seek asylum. Such assessments are necessary to identify whether an asylum seeker has particular vulnerabilities that may require additional support. While the White Paper commits to these assessments being carried out, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) has identified that these continue to be performed at far too slow a rate to comply with the Directive. According to the IHREC, only 151 out of 886 applications were completed in 2021 and many were not completed within the required time frame. The White Paper does not address how the Government intends to expedite this process in order to comply with its human rights obligations. A commitment to funding additional resources to ensure vulnerability assessments can be carried out in an appropriate manner once the transition from Direct Provision has been completed is also notably absent.
While the Government has committed to a system post-2024 that is “grounded in the principles of human rights, respect for diversity and respect for privacy and family,” it is unclear what this will mean in practice. It is submitted that the system outlined above is merely a stop-gap measure that does not address procedural delay. Any proposed model would need a greater degree of specificity if it is to align with the Government’s objectives. The lofty goals outlined in the Government’s plans must be considered in light of the existing failures to divert resources that would clear the backlog of asylum applications. It is therefore pertinent to examine what a transformed reception and integration system could look like in Ireland.
Accommodation Distribution
According to the White Paper, new types of accommodation for asylum seekers will be located in all counties. The location and number of applicants to be accommodated in each county will be determined according to a ‘national settlement pattern’ that will be developed by the County and City Management Association in cooperation with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. This settlement pattern
should take account of applicant’s needs, population density, housing needs and the availability of relevant public services in each county. This is a welcome move on the part of the Irish Government to address the current indiscriminate and inconsistent location of Direct Provision Centres with the large majority being unfit for purpose. However, what remains unclear is how exactly this national settlement pattern will function in the current inequitable housing market, and which parameters will be prioritised in the drawing up of such a plan.
Germany, known for its record number of asylum applications, has a rather interesting approach to their version of a national settlement pattern. According to figures from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, Germany accepted around 190,800 asylum applications in 2021. Data compiled by Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, indicated that this represents 28.4 percent of all asylum claims made in the EU. The Königsteiner Schlüssel is the system by which the Bundesländer (federal states) participate in joint financing. For over twenty years, the system has also served as a method by which the German Government can ensure a proportionate distribution of asylum seekers throughout the country. The Königsteiner Schlüssel ensures that poorer federal states do not receive the same number of asylum seekers as the equally populous but comparatively richer states, leading to better integration of the asylum seekers into local communities and a higher standard of amenities for applicants. The Königsteiner Schlüssel prescribes a quota of asylum seekers which is calculated based on the tax revenue and population of each state. The tax revenue is given a weighting of two thirds, while the population accounts for the remaining third. The quotas are calculated annually in order to account for changes in the aforementioned statistics. It may seem rather dispassionate that the distribution of asylum seekers is regulated in accordance with a system originally invented to deal with financial matters, but it appears to function relatively well in preventing asylum seekers from posing an insurmountable fiscal burden on any one state. In addition, a survey carried out by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research suggests that 55 percent of Germans have contributed to the integration of refugees either financially, or through their own involvement in supportive actions such as organising language classes or practical skill workshops. Refugee representation in institutes of higher education is also impressively high, with the number of refugees in German universities increasing ten-fold over the past few years from 1,100 in 2016 to around 10,000 in 2019 according to the Rector’s Conference.
Once the German state has been assigned a quota of asylum seekers, they can choose the method by which they assign asylum seeker accommodation within their borders. The State of Nordrhein Westfalen, for example, takes into account the number of refugees and asylum seekers already living in each area in order to prevent certain areas from having disproportionately high percentages of international protection applicants. The system, however, is not without its faults and can place exceptionally high burdens on larger cities with high population densities like Hamburg. This leads to problems regarding the affordability of housing and establishment of housing projects. Asylum seekers are also afforded no choice in terms of their accommodation location. They may apply to be allocated to a specific town or district, but such applications are only successful in extraordinary circumstances.
Despite these faults, it is worth investigating whether the German system could provide a basis from which the Irish Government could construct their own national settlement pattern.
