The Irish Refugee Council has accused the Government of planning to usher in “cruel proposals” and being ”intent on keeping families separated”.
Opposition parties have also been critical of the Coalition’s plan to further tighten family reunification rights for refugees.
The Cabinet is now considering the International Protection Bill, which is designed to overhaul the State’s asylum system and bring it in line with a new European Union immigration pact that comes into force in June.
As part of this, a provision is expected to impose a a blanket three-year waiting period before refugees can bring family members to Ireland under family reunification rules. This is in addition to more conditions announced last year restricting access to reunification if refugees did not have economic means to support family members, had a debt to the State or had claimed certain social welfare payments.
On Tuesday, the Irish Refugee Council said Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan and Minister of State for Migration Colm Brophy were “intent on keeping families separated”.
Its chief executive, Nick Henderson, said that on top of the changes proposed in November, a three-year wait “will result in families being torn apart for five years or more”. He said applications for protection take at least a year to process, while a family reunification application can take 18 months, during which time “partners and children may remain in situations of serious harm and persecution”.
“We call on the Government to withdraw these cruel proposals immediately.”
Mr O’Callaghan said the new legislation aims to strike a balance between the rights of asylum applicants and the overall wellbeing of the State.
“I have to strike a fair balance between, on the one hand, the applicant’s interest in being reunited with his or her family, but also with the interest of the community as a whole to control immigration with a view to protecting the economic well-being of the country, to ensuring effective integration of those granted protection and to preserving social cohesion,” he told RTÉ radio’s News at One.
He said the new legislation will impose a legal requirement for first-instance asylum decisions to be made within three months and for appeals to be determined within three months.
Through these new procedures, the Minister for Justice said the legislation intends to ensure asylum seekers get an answer to their claim within six months.
“I think that makes the system more efficient; it will make the system fairer, not just for the asylum applicant, but indeed for the Irish public,“ he added.
“One of the characteristics of the asylum system in Ireland historically is that people have come here, made applications for asylum and they can be waiting two to three to four years for a determination of their application.
“I think it’s much fairer for them, and indeed for the general public, if we can get a prompt determination of their application so that if they’re refused they can get on with their lives, [and] if they are granted [asylum] they can incorporate into Ireland.”
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman, who served as minister for integration in the last government, said the move is “window dressing” and about being “seen to do something”.
“That makes their integration into our country more difficult,” he said, adding he does not think it will work.
Mr O’Gorman criticised the Coalition for what he said was a failure to do enough to reform the international protection accommodation system after numbers arriving began to decline in 2024.
Labour Party TD Duncan Smith said many elements of the Bill are “deeply troubling”, especially the expected three-year wait.
Considering the length of time it takes to obtain refugee status, he said it would mean “systemically separating families for five, six, even more years”.
“This is not what Ireland should stand for,“ he said, adding it would be wise for the Minister to ”pull back on the most deplorable elements of this Bill”.
Sinn Féin’s justice spokesman Matt Carthy raised questions about Ireland’s participation in the European Union’s Migration and Asylum Pact. He said his party has not seen the full details of the proposals that went to Cabinet on Tuesday but it will soon examine it.
Mr Carthy claimed that, despite announcements by Mr O’Callaghan, “we’ve seen virtually no changes” in Ireland’s immigration system.
“The difficulty with the Government’s approach is that they’re being guided entirely by the EU Migration and Asylum Pact. They’re not being guided by the needs of Ireland to address the dysfunction that is within our international protection system.”