{"id":185561,"date":"2025-11-17T16:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/185561\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T16:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:29:09","slug":"tougher-uk-asylum-laws-may-prompt-irish-changes-says-minister-for-justice-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/185561\/","title":{"rendered":"Tougher UK asylum laws may prompt Irish changes, says Minister for Justice \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland may need to consider changes to asylum and immigration<\/a> rules on foot of tougher changes being brought in by the British<\/a> government, according to Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under the British changes, newly-arrived asylum seekers will no longer qualify for an indefinite right to stay, while existing cases will be reviewed after 2\u00bd years and people will be sent back to their countries, if those countries are then deemed safe.<\/p>\n

Currently, \u201cover 80 per cent\u201d of those claiming asylum in the Republic are reaching Dublin from Northern Ireland<\/a>, the Minister for Justice said, following a British-Irish inter-governmental conference in Farmleigh.<\/p>\n

The century-old Common Travel Area<\/a> that lets citizens of the Republic and the UK live and work in each other\u2019s countries was not, and is not, there to be used by people from other states, the Minister said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther persons are not allowed to avail of this, and that\u2019s the message that I think both governments need to consistently emphasise,\u201d said Mr O\u2019Callaghan, who met Northern Ireland Secretary of State Hilary Benn<\/a> along with T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UK home office officials briefed the Department of Justice on the changes to come last Thursday, significantly in advance of British home secretary Shabana Mahmood\u2019s House of Commons address on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"SecretarySecretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn at a press conference at Farmleigh House in Dublin on Monday. Photograph: Conor O Mearain\/PA Wire <\/p>\n

Thanking her for the early warning, the Mr O\u2019Callaghan said it reflected the high level of co-operation that exists between the Irish and British authorities as they deal with asylum numbers.<\/p>\n

British authorities are entitled to change their own laws, though he acknowledged that changes in the past have impacted on the flows of asylum applicants coming to Ireland rather than the United Kingdom<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it does indicate is that we need to be nimble in Ireland, as we may need to change our laws and our provisions as well to respond to any changes that have taken place in the UK,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Responding to questions on immigration, the T\u00e1naiste said it is possible both to offer a welcome to people who are fleeing persecution, and also deal with concerns of people here about numbers arriving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Common Travel Area is something that we so value. It\u2019s really at the cornerstone of the relationship between Ireland and the UK. It works in such a practical way on a daily basis for everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that we all worked so hard to protect and maintain during Brexit. The Common Travel Area was never intended to play a role in terms of asylum seekers,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Defending the tougher asylum laws to come in the UK, Mr Benn said the British government remains \u201cabsolutely committed\u201d to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).<\/p>\n

Changes that would impact on the ECHR are, and will remain unacceptable because they would \u201creally would undermine the Good Friday Agreement, which has seen so much progress take place in Northern Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, it is \u201cundoubtedly the case\u201d there is \u201ca great deal of public concern about illegal migration\u201d in the UK, he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s vital we have a system everyone can have confidence in, that can distinguish between those trying to use it for other reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defending the tougher rules that could send some asylum seekers back, he said: \u201cFor most of us, if we were having to flee the land of our birth and things got better, well, I think most of us would want to go home in those circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland may need to consider changes to asylum and immigration rules on foot of tougher changes being brought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,61466,23935,13,14,6,50348,56,26735,11,12,15,16,5,954,44,7,8,393,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-185561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-common-travel-area","11":"tag-common-ground","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-hilary-benn","16":"tag-immigration","17":"tag-jim-ocallaghan","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-northern-ireland","24":"tag-simon-harris","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories","27":"tag-united-kingdom","28":"tag-world","29":"tag-world-news","30":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115565990302039432","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}