Five new countries are set to be added to Ireland’s official list of “safe countries” for the purposes of asylum cases, Justice Minister Helen McEntee has said.
While individuals from a listed “safe” country can still apply for asylum in Ireland, their cases will be fast-tracked significantly, with the applicant being forced to demonstrate why they are an exceptional case and deserve to be protected even though their country is largely considered safe.
The claim will be subject to “accelerated processing” and a decision will be reached within a maximum of 90 days.
The five new “safe” countries have not been named by the government yet. However, there are currently ten countries on the list currently, which was created in November 2022.
These are Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Georgia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and South Africa.
According to the Department of Justice, putting these on the safe country list has had a “significant” effect on the number of applications from those countries, causing applications to decrease by over 50% since the introduction of the measure.
According to Department of Integration figures, the top 3 countries for most international protection applications in Ireland as of June 23rd are Nigeria (6,230), Georgia (3,510) and Algeria (3,026).