On November 17th, 2025, Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration Jim O’Callaghan made a statement that Irish asylum policy should be aligned with that of the UK. In a direct copy of proposed UK measures, draft legislation that has yet to be published will seek to limit family reunification and access to citizenship for refugees – that is those who claim asylum and have been found to be in need of international protection.
Both sets of policies, if adopted, are likely to increase refugees’ recourse to irregular journeys, and in the case on the limitations of access to citizenship for settled refugees, may breach the Refugee Convention, as a report I recently co-wrote for the Council of Europe explains.
O’Callaghan’s alignment with UK policy suggests chronic short-sightedness and short-termism. The framing of his statement is itself a problem: he intimated that there is a “flow” of asylum seekers, which will come this way unless Ireland’s policies align with those of the UK. For that reason, he stated a commitment to ensure “that Ireland is not viewed more favourably than the UK by those seeking to claim asylum”.
The number of asylum seekers is framed as the problem. And yet, we are in a period when, overall, the number of those coming to Europe to seek protection has fallen, after the spikes with the Syrian civil war (2015) and the exodus from Ukraine (2022).
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The number of people seeking protection is mainly a factor of conditions in the countries of origin, and domestic asylum policy has been shown, time and time again, to have some, but very limited, impact. When politicians peddle illusions of control via harsh policies, they mislead their own electorates. And when those policies fail to have the promised impact, they risk greater disaffection and cynicism.
‘As the rule of law and democracy are eroded across the globe, institutional commitments and principles are being tested’
In any event, there are other objections to deterrent policies. It is morally objectionable to treat one group of people harshly in order to deter others who are exercising their rights to seek asylum. And when that harsh treatment involves human rights violations, in particular of absolute rights, it should simply be a legal and political taboo. The Irish policy of enforced homelessness of men seeking asylum belongs in this category of inhuman treatment. Dealing with the real policy challenges of creating better systems of reception would take far more effort, insight and collaboration than the tough talk.
This not the time to align with the UK on anything to do with asylum, migration and human rights. The previous UK government invested millions in a futile policy (sending all asylum seekers to Rwanda) that was found unlawful by its own Supreme Court on the grounds that it violated a core principle of law – that people not be deliberately exposed to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. The Labour government has abandoned the Rwanda approach, but is still scrambling for harsher policies to stave off the electoral threat of the Reform Party. The UK debate around migration, asylum and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has become fundamentally misleading, as researchers at my former academic home, the University of Oxford, have shown.
We are indirectly falling sway to toxic politics when an Irish Minister implicitly endorses the treatment of UK policy as a model for Ireland, based on the empirically wonky “pull factors” premise.
One legal academic recently characterised interventions by academics in the debate on the ECHR in the UK as bringing “facts to a vibe fight”. But we know the vibes matter – they render asylum seekers and refugees more vulnerable to violence, and they normalise xenophobia. We can and should do better. It could be a matter of national pride to be viewed as a country that protects refugees.
One of my most formative experiences as a researcher was visiting refugee shelters across Toronto in Canada in 2015. Refugee claimants got to work quickly on arrival, and often went back to the shelters where new arrivals stayed to offer support. The shelter system had its problems, but it included city centre apartment blocks and large suburban houses in middle-class neighbourhoods, and a range of other forms of accommodation – a system of institutional welcome woven into the city. These shelters were run by refugee-led and civil society organisations, funded by the State.
Canada has long been the preferred destination for many seeking refuge, rather than its much larger neighbour. Due to strong citizen support, it has maintained a functioning asylum system, despite occasional political attempts to undermine it. At the time I visited, the medical profession was on strike in opposition to legislative changes that would have cut healthcare to asylum seekers. Following their legal and political pushback, those changes were abandoned.
As the rule of law and democracy are eroded across the globe, institutional commitments and principles are being tested.
The slide from rhetoric to real rights violations is no longer unthinkable. In the US, we have seen the rule of law not merely eroded but abandoned when we look at deportation practices, with masked officers abducting international students and others deemed unwelcome (both regular and irregular residents, including some US citizens). Some deportees are disappeared into a notorious overcrowded prison in El Salvador. Immigration enforcement has become a lawless tool of political terror.
Support for asylum and human rights is based on the basic equality of all human beings – not a right to live anywhere of one’s choosing, but a right not to be subjected to the worst forms of abuse and dehumanisation, or to be returned to a country of origin to face that treatment. These principles have been translated into practice in Europe in the aftermath of the second World War, with institutional frameworks that, however imperfect, enable states to regulate migration, without descending into inhumanity and illegality.
The UK stands at a precipice post-Brexit, with withdrawal from the ECHR also on the table there. Ireland has to figure out where it stands in these troubled times – cheap, tough talk on migration is ill-fitting at this moment.
Cathryn Costello is professor of Global Refugee and Migration Law at UCD
