People granted refugee status will have to wait for three years before bringing relatives including spouses and children to Ireland under a planned tightening of family reunification rules.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> will brief the Cabinet on a new International Protection Bill, which will overhaul the State\u2019s asylum system in advance of European Union<\/a>-wide rules coming into force in June. <\/p>\n Last November, the Government signalled it would tighten rules around family reunification<\/a> for people with refugee status, restricting the ability to bring relatives into the State if refugees were not financially self-sufficient, if they had been in receipt of some social welfare payments or if they owed a debt to the State. <\/p>\n However, Mr O\u2019Callaghan is expected to tell Cabinet of further restrictions: a general waiting period of three years for adult refugees before they can seek family reunification, which will also apply to immediate family members. <\/p>\n Provisions on this are being developed by Mr O\u2019Callaghan and the Attorney General, and amendments to the International Protection Bill to give effect to this are expected during the legislative process. <\/p>\n The Government says the reforms to the immigration system<\/a> are the most significant in the history of the State. It says they will align Ireland with other EU countries and result in faster, cheaper and more efficient decision-making, with quicker departures of people who do not achieve protective status.<\/p>\n A further tightening of family reunification rules will probably draw criticism from those working with refugees, who have already questioned the Government\u2019s hardened stance<\/a> on immigration. <\/p>\n On Friday, T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> doubled down on previous comments about the number of non-Irish people in emergency accommodation. Mr Harris previously told The Irish Times that a \u201csignificant number\u201d of people in homeless accommodation do not have a housing right in Ireland.<\/p>\n In a post on Substack on Friday, he said that number is \u201cincreasing all the time\u201d and \u201cwe do not have a legal obligation to provide many such people with housing\u201d. <\/p>\n [\u00a0Sharp drop in number of asylum applications in Ireland last yearOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Amid ongoing focus on the immigration system, figures from the Department of Justice show departures by unsuccessful asylum seekers increased significantly last year<\/a>, with 2,111 leaving in 2025 compared with 1,116 the previous year. <\/p>\n The main driver of those figures continues to be people leaving voluntarily, accounting for 1,616 of the total. Under voluntary return, the State can meet travel costs and offers financial help to those leaving.<\/p>\n Mr O\u2019Callaghan is expected to tell Ministers this week that he intends to allow for broader use of voluntary returns than envisaged by the EU migration pact<\/a>.<\/p>\n Immigration officials here fear that without significant numbers of voluntary returns, Ireland would struggle to hit targets set by the pact. The EU plan provides strict rules relating to voluntary returns, including that this option cannot be offered to people whose refugee applications are rejected as unfounded and that people should be given only 15 days to return. However, only Schengen area countries are bound by these rules, and the Government believes Ireland has more flexibility to facilitate voluntary returns. <\/p>\n The Department of Justice figures show enforced deportations or those carried out by charter flights grew to 367 last year, up from 134 in 2024. <\/p>\n