Yesterday, a report released under freedom of information spelled out the huge strain placed on the system managing asylum applications in Ireland – and pointed to the enormous ramifications of allowing family reunification under said system, not least of which is that the entitlement can double the asylum numbers, fast.
I wrote about this in May when figures released in response to a parliamentary question showed that, between 2019-2024, there has been a significant increase in the number of refugees whose requests to also bring family members to Ireland under the Family Reunification process was approved.
In fact, the figures released by the Minister for Justice to a PQ from Carol Nolan TD at that time showed that family reunification approvals had more than tripled annually from 2019 to 2024 when 983 such approvals were made. Each approval, we now know, brought an average of 2.5 additional people into an already overloaded system.
RTÉ reports that “the Department of Justice had refused to release the documents on extra money and staff to deal with International Protection applications. However, following an appeal under FOI laws, they have now released some records which detail how the system had seen a 385% increase in expected applications between 2022 and 2023”.
(There’s an additional recurring theme here obviously: information as to the workings and failures of the asylum system has to be dragged out of the authorities, just as it was regarding the thousands who entered the state without documents, just as we weren’t told that deportations were at ridiculously low levels, just as the billions paid out to asylum accommodation providers are obscured. The public, in my opinion, are drawing their own conclusions as to why that is. )
The information released under appeal to RTÉ showed a system “close to collapse” last year as “senior officials warned backlogs were quickly reaching “unmanageable levels”,” the broadcaster said.
That was evidenced to the public in any case by the lines of tents outside the International Protection Office on Mount Street at the time, and the eventual drift of the asylum encampment onto the canal.
Luckily, as the FOI revealed, the crisis “led to a major increase in funding and staffing as officials were told the system was on the verge of buckling”. There is no limit, it seems, to the amount of taxpayer’s money the government is happy to throw at the asylum system. A bit like RTÉ itself, I suppose. What a happy position for any sector to find itself in.
And what of bringing the family over? The report from the Department of Justice confirmed that “every person granted refugee status or subsidiary protection was entitled to apply for family reunification.”
The document said: “[Circa] 35 to 40% do so and on average seek permissions for 2.5 family members to be allowed join them.”
As the Department of Justice business case pointed out: “Most applicants are entitled to reception conditions, including accommodation, access to healthcare and education, and a contribution to weekly expenses while their cases are being processed.”
There’s no doubt that our generosity, as widely advertised by former Minister Roderic O’Gorman and others, made us an attractive destination. In addition, the Department of Justice pointed our that “deportations had almost ground to a halt during and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic making Ireland an attractive country for those seeking asylum” – thanks, of course, to the equally hapless Helen McEntee.
In addition the generous provision, the right to family reunification is clearly a pull factor in any case: if you win the right to asylum, then the family can all pile in. And the report tells us that in almost 4 out if 10 cases where asylum is granted, permission is sought to bring an average of 2.5 additional people for every person already granted the right to stay.
Look at the numbers: a total of 18,651 people applied for asylum in Ireland in 2024, an enormous jump on the 13,264 who applied in 2023. According to official figures, in 3,888 cases, asylum was granted. (Most of those whose are refused then appeal that decision).
So if 40% of those 3,888 persons, on average, seek to enforce the right of family members to join them, then that’s 1,555 persons looking to expand their right to asylum accommodation and services to, we are told, an average of 2.5 additional family members.
That means the 1,555 persons granted asylum can cause the number of persons actually permitted to stay to soar to 5,442 persons under family reunification. For that cohort, then, the numbers involved more than triple.
And overall, the numbers of persons who will actually allowed under the law to come and live here and avail of asylum services therefore will likely double from 3,888 to 7,775.
Of course, as the percentage of successful applications also seeking family reunification increases, those numbers will also increase – and that’s certainly the current trend.
That’s how family reunification can dramatically increase the number of asylum seekers. And that’s before we even get to investigating how many asylum applications are being successfully made where the person has no identifying documentation – with obvious repercussions for deciding what family members can come to live here and avail of health care and other services in a country where provision of said services are very, very stretched.
The International Protection Act 2015 defines a member of the family as a spouse, a civil partner, children, and parents, but it has been applied in the Irish courts more broadly to include grandchildren and even wards.
In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that two refugees who became Irish citizens were entitled to seek enhanced family reunification rights under the Refugee Act 1996, which had been replaced by the International Protection Act 2015, which narrowed family reunification rights.
In his ruling, Mr Justice John MacMenamin found that the fact that two women, from Somalia and Uzbekistan, became Irish citizens did not deprive them of the right to apply for family reunification.
Mr Justice MacMenamin said that the Somali woman had been granted refugee status in 2008, and that prior to becoming an Irish citizen in 2013, she had got permission for her children, her mother and her wards to join her in this country.
After re-establishing contact with her husband in late 2016, she sought family reunification in respect of him under the 1996 Act but was refused on grounds of her Irish citizenship.
The second woman, aged in her 40s, got refugee status here in 2009 and citizenship in 2012 but was refused family reunification rights under section 18 for her eldest daughter and two grandchildren due to her citizenship, the Irish Times reported.
The same sort of multiplier effect, of course, would apply if the campaign to allow a relaxation of the rules around family reunification for those here on work permits was successful: doubling, tripling, quadrupling or more the number of people looking for housing, schools, and services. It would be an incredibly foolish and reckless policy but that seems to be the path the authorities are on at the moment, whatever the consequences.
It is entirely understandable that families wish to be together – and that our instinct is to assist them to do so if possible. But there’s a growing gap between what we’d like to do and what we can do. We may not get a warm, virtuous feeling from pointing out that we are at our limit in terms of how many people we can provide for, especially when it comes to housing and essential services. But at least that would be an honest admission, for ourselves and those coming here.
In the meantime, Irish young people are emigrating in droves. They have no enforceable right to family reunification if this country’s policies have made it impossible for them to live here and to raise a family. Paddy last in our own country as ever.