{"id":537796,"date":"2026-07-07T17:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T17:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537796\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T17:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T17:15:10","slug":"ireland-has-no-immediate-plans-to-set-up-asylum-seeker-return-hubs-outside-eu-taoiseach-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537796\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland has \u2018no immediate plans\u2019 to set up asylum seeker return hubs outside EU \u2013 Taoiseach \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government has \u201cno immediate plans\u201d to establish facilities in countries outside the EU<\/a> to accommodate unsuccessful asylum seekers while deportation to their country of origin is arranged, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

Proposals to allow EU countries to strike deals to set up so-called return hubs outside their territories <\/a>are picking up steam, with the Dutch, Danish and Italian governments pushing Brussels for approval to move ahead with plans for deportation hubs in Africa or potentially the western Balkans.<\/p>\n

The idea would be to send asylum seekers <\/a>whose applications for international protection are denied to such sites, or facilities, while their deportation to their country of origin is arranged, an often complicated process which can take years. <\/p>\n

Amnesty International and other civil society organisations have expressed serious concerns that return hubs will not comply with international law. The civil society sector has also criticised the policy as outsourcing European governments\u2019 obligations to asylum seekers <\/a>to countries with spottier human rights records. <\/p>\n

Speaking on Tuesday, Martin said the Republic had \u201cno immediate plans\u201d to pursue deals to establish return hubs. <\/p>\n

He said the Government was \u201cworking hard\u201d to speed up the amount of time it takes to rule on asylum applications. <\/p>\n

A \u201csignificant\u201d number of cases where claims were rejected appeared to relate to people who were \u201ceconomic migrants\u201d and so did not qualify for protection, he said. <\/p>\n

More resources are being pumped into fast-tracking the appeals in cases where a person\u2019s asylum claim has been refused by Department of Justice officials, Martin added. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur experience is that the faster we can process applications, the better … What was wrong in the past is that people were left hanging around for years before there\u2019s any determination on their application,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Taoiseach was speaking at a press conference in Strasbourg, France, after delivering an address to the European Parliament.<\/p>\n

Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> last week said his officials would be watching to see how other countries sought to \u201coperationalise\u201d the idea for return hubs. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to adopt a pragmatic approach in respect to this, we haven\u2019t seen any return hubs being developed yet. I have an open mind in respect of it. I\u2019m not prepared to rule Ireland\u2019s participation in them out at this stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

An EU-wide overhaul of asylum rules intended to fast-track certain types of cases and appeals took effect last month. <\/p>\n

The reformed system <\/a>obliges the State to rule on applicant claims, plus any appeal, within 12 weeks. It applies to cases where the asylum seeker is from a country deemed \u201csafe\u201d or where they made an earlier asylum request in another EU country.<\/p>\n

Some 89 per cent of requests from asylum seekers for international protection were refused in an 11-month trial of this fast-track system undertaken by the Department of Justice over the last year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government has \u201cno immediate plans\u201d to establish facilities in countries outside the EU to accommodate unsuccessful asylum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9691,2244,61,1629,60,18573,1843,43],"class_list":["post-537796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-department-of-justice","tag-eu","tag-ie","tag-immigration","tag-ireland","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537796","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=537796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}