|Published on: 11th June 2026|Categories: News|
The updated AIDA Country Report on Ireland provides a detailed overview of legislative and practice-related developments in asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum applicants and content of international protection in 2025. It is accompanied by an annex providing an overview of temporary protection.
A number of key developments drawn from the overview of the main changes that have taken place since the publication of the update on 2024 are set out below.
(A) International protection
Asylum procedure
- Statistics: 13,159 applications for international protection were lodged in The International Protection Office (IPO) issued a total of 19,558 decisions, of which 3,751 were positive. The median processing time for first instance decisions was approximately 17 months in the ordinary procedure and four months in the accelerated procedure.
- New asylum processes: In summer 2025, the IPO started implementing the ‘Pact Transition’ process for applicants from Brazil, Georgia and India. It was subsequently expanded to cover 12 other countries. Applications from nationals of these countries were processed in a manner intended to mirror the border procedure that is scheduled to come into effect with the implementation of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum in June 2026.
- Accelerated procedure: In July 2025, the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration announced an extension of the accelerated procedure that had been introduced in 2024 for applicants from Nigeria and Jordan to include applicants from Pakistan.
- International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) processing capacity: In October 2025, the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration announced that the IPAT would benefit from assistance from the EU Agency for Asylum to prepare appeal files, conduct research on country of origin information and international protection jurisprudence, and provide interpretation in difficult-to-source languages.
- ‘Voluntary return’ incentives: In September 2025, the voluntary return incentives for asylum applicants who withdrew their claims before a final decision were significantly increased. Payments of up to €2,500 per person and €10,000 per family were offered, with decreasing amounts offered the further along in the asylum procedure applicants went. The policy was criticised as unethical for specifically targeting and encouraging people in need of protection to abandon their claims. By December 2025, 1,496 people had returned voluntarily, a 78% increase compared with the same period in the previous year.
Reception conditions
- Access to reception: Reception capacity remained a significant challenge in 2025. Due to ongoing accommodation shortages, single male asylum applicants who were not identified as vulnerable were denied housing and left homeless for prolonged periods, often during bouts of inclement weather and amidst a period of increased anti-immigrant sentiment. The Court of Appeal overturned the High Court’s finding that the lack of accommodation breached human dignity. The case is pending before the Supreme Court. In a separate but related case, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that failing to provide basic reception conditions – even during periods of high arrivals – manifestly and gravely exceeded the discretion afforded under the Reception Conditions Directive.
- Reception conditions: Reception standards remained poor in 2025. There was a continued reliance on overcrowded, emergency accommodation that lacked adequate access to basic In order to address capacity shortages, additional tented and modular accommodation sites were developed. However, some projects such as the Lissywollen centre faced strong local opposition and successful legal challenges over planning and approval procedures which had been fast-tracked with little local consultation. In late 2025, the centre’s temporary structures were dismantled and the site was cleared. Although some reception centres were fully compliant with national standards, inspections across Ireland identified recurring shortcomings in governance, safeguarding, accommodation standards, emergency preparedness and support for residents with specific needs.
- Daily allowance: In November 2025, the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration proposed a means-tested contribution scheme requiring employed international protection applicants in state-provided accommodation to help cover their housing costs. The proposal was criticised by the Irish Refugee Council on the grounds that many applicants had low or unstable incomes and should not be expected to pay for often inadequate accommodation.
Content of international protection
- Restrictions to family reunification and citizenship: In November 2025, the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration announced reforms aimed at tightening family reunification and citizenship rules for beneficiaries of international protection, including stricter financial and housing requirements for family reunification and extending the residency requirement for naturalisation from three to five years. New citizenship criteria also introduced a self-sufficiency requirement and restrictions linked to recent receipt of certain social welfare payments. Although the majority of the proposed changes will require legislative amendments in order to become operational, the qualifying residence condition with respect to citizenship became operational in December 2025.
(B) Temporary protection
- Key statistics: As of 3 February 2026, 121,048 people had registered for temporary protection in Ireland. 84,100 people had activity administrative data in Ireland after 30 November 2025.
- Beneficiaries in another EU member state: Applicants who have previously held temporary protection status in another EU member state are required to prove that their status has been formally cancelled before they can apply in Ireland. In practice, delays or errors in updating EU databases have meant that former statuses may still appear active. In some cases, this has resulted in refusals despite applicants having already completed cancellation procedures elsewhere.
- Restrictions to accommodation measures: In 2025 and early 2026, several temporary protection accommodation measures were tightened and gradually phased out. Following a revision of the absence rules for state accommodation in September 2025, permitted absences were limited to 21 days per year. Since November 2025, beneficiaries of temporary protection have generally been limited to 30 days in designated accommodation. As a result, some people who were unable to secure housing have had to return to Ukraine. A broader phased withdrawal of state-contracted accommodation, which would affect most of the 16,000 current beneficiaries of such housing, was announced in April 2026. At the same time, monthly payments for private hosting were reduced in 2025 and the entire scheme is due to be wound up by March 2027.
The full report is available here and the annex on temporary protection is available here.
For more information about the AIDA database or to read other AIDA reports, please visit the AIDA website.
