{"id":319768,"date":"2026-02-27T08:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/319768\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T08:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:21:07","slug":"nearly-30-of-unaccompanied-minors-seeking-asylum-ineligible-says-department-of-justice-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/319768\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 30% of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum \u2018ineligible\u2019, says Department of Justice \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost 30 per cent of those seeking international protection<\/a> as unaccompanied minors over the last two years were subsequently found by the child and family agency Tusla<\/a> not to be eligible, the Department of Justice has said. <\/p>\n

Figures provided by the Department of Justice<\/a> suggested that more than 140 people who sought international protection as children were determined by Tusla to be adults.<\/p>\n

The figures are slightly different from those provided by Tusla to Public Accounts Committee member James Geoghegan of Fine Gael earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Geoghegan told the D\u00e1il<\/a>\u2019s Public Accounts Committee (Pac<\/a>) on Thursday that the figure for the number of people found to be adults who had been placed in child-based settings was \u201cenormous\u201d.<\/p>\n

He maintained there were \u201cserious safeguarding issues\u201d involved.<\/p>\n

The Fine Gael deputy urged the committee to seek details from Tusla on the length of time people purporting to be unaccompanied minors had been in a childcare setting before it had been determined they were not eligible for such services.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the Pac, dated February 6th, the secretary general of the Department of Justice, Oonagh McPhillips, said existing legislation required the International Protection Office to refer an unaccompanied minor to Tusla.<\/p>\n

She said Tusla then carried out an assessment for eligibility for services under the Childcare Act. She said that where Tusla \u201cfind that the applicant is not an unaccompanied minor\u201d, the applicant is returned to the International Protection Office to make their application as an adult.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0More than 150 child asylum claims were ruled ineligible, Tusla figures revealOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween 2024 and 2025, there were 592 individuals referred to Tusla by the International Protection Office. Two-thirds of these referrals were Somali or Afghan nationals, with a large majority having a claimed age of 16 or 17.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs of 1 February 2026, Tusla has made determinations on 491 of these 592 applicants \u2013 judging 141 of these not to be eligible for services and 348 to be eligible\u201d, McPhillips said in her letter. <\/p>\n

The Irish Times reported on Wednesday that Tusla had told Geoghegan in a letter that 86 people last year and 67 in 2024 had been referred back to the Department of Justice International Protection Office.<\/p>\n

Geoghegan said in a statement on foot of that letter the Tusla figures meant there were \u201cover 150 cases in two years where people initially entered child protection settings but were later assessed as not meeting the threshold for care as minors\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cChild protection placements are designed for children, with strict welfare and supervision standards. They are not designed to accommodate adults, even temporarily,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Tusla has seen a significant increase in unaccompanied minors referred for accommodation, particularly from Ukraine, in recent years. <\/p>\n

A Tusla spokesman said: \u201cThe challenge of upscaling services to respond promptly to the number of unaccompanied minors arriving in Ireland is ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost 30 per cent of those seeking international protection as unaccompanied minors over the last two years were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15049,9691,42,1629,34148,98820,43,12467,40,38,41,39,53],"class_list":{"0":"post-319768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-dail-eireann","9":"tag-department-of-justice","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-immigration","12":"tag-international-protection-office","13":"tag-international-protection-support-services","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-public-accounts-committee","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-tusla"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}