The Government believes it can lower the costs of accommodating a person seeking asylum by 60 per cent under new rules being brought in.
However, it accepts costs may increase before they fall.
The Cabinet agreed on Tuesday to submit an implementation plan to the European Commission as part of the process of signing Ireland up to the new European Migration and Asylum pact, approved last year.
The cabinet was updated on the plans by Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan. While Ministers were told on Tuesday that the cost to the State would increase in the short term due to the impact of introducing a second “parallel system” as part of the pact, the indicative future cost could fall from about €123,000 per applicant to just under €50,000.
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This reduction is contingent on bringing down processing times from the current average of 29 months between first applications and appeals to a nine-month processing timeline.
This new shorter timeline, Ministers were told, arises from the introduction of new statutory timelines in the EU pact and a commitment required to include national targets for appeals to negative decisions and returns to another jurisdiction.
The Government has to implement a new system which will entail repealing current laws governing immigration and replacing them with new legislation by June 2026.
Cabinet was told that arrivals into the system are estimated to be between 15,000 and 18,000 annually, with a lowest case scenario of 10,000 and a need to build a “surge” capacity that could accommodate up to 24,000 people seeking protection.
Under the pact, a certain cohort - the size of which is yet to be determined - will not enter the international protection system, but instead be subject to an accelerated process known as the “border procedure”.
People entering into this category will include those coming from jurisdictions with high failure rates in terms of successfully being granted asylum, or those arriving with forged or no papers, or people deemed to be a security risk.
Numbers of arrivals have decreased in the first quarter of the year compared to 2024, Cabinet was told, but there is no guarantee this trend will continue.
Since 2022, the State has seen a marked increase in arrivals of those seeking international protection as the global geopolitical situation has destabilised, and due to pent-up demand arising from travel restrictions in place during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In response, there have been moves to tighten up some aspects of immigration policy and also to speed up processing times – with the opening of accommodation centres for migrants proving to be a political flashpoint.
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Under the pact, the State will introduce a 12-week time limit for a first decision for those in the faster border procedure, including those without documents or with false documents, who are deemed a security risk, or who come from a country where 20 per cent or less of asylum applications are successful across the EU.
The existing International Protection Office (IPO) and International Protection Appeals Tribunal will be replaced, while the European asylum database, EuroDac, will be extended to track irregular arrivals and asylum applications, the Government said in a statement.
The State’s implementation plan also allows for the replacement of current regulations governing the return of migrants to another member state where that country is responsible for processing – as well as measures to relocate applicants from or to provide financial support to member states under significant pressure.
It also provides for co-location of screening and processing services in accommodation centres in an effort to speed up processing times, as well as the provision of legal counselling and assistance.
