![Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan told the Seanad the pilot project is 'seeking to implement what the [EU migration and asylum] pact will look like'. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire](https://www.irishtimes.com/resizer/v2/DER554IVN7OO6DKRHCN4IUOAUI.jpg?auth=78c0a62a9ee40530a75f1c26c1cc4d2cb17055266df9ab423d7ad813aec4e2fa&smart=true&width=1024&height=714)
A pilot project processing asylum applications in line with the EU migration and asylum pact has been operating since last year in advance of the new system coming into effect on June 12th.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan told the Seanad the pilot project is “seeking to implement what the pact will look like”.
Cases dealt with include “applications from safe countries” and those where the acceptance level is less than 20 per cent.
“They are the type of cases that will be dealt with subsequently under the expedited procedures once the new legislation comes into effect,” O’Callaghan said.
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He said “we are also operating it for countries such as Nigeria. We are getting an expedited processing of those applications within the time periods set down in the legislation.”
The Minister was responding to Independent Senator Michael McDowell during the Seanad’s committee stage debate on the controversial International Protection Bill.
Described as the most radical reform of immigration law in the State’s history, it aims to bring Irish legislation in line with the EU pact.
The Bill provides for asylum applications being dealt with or “expedited” within 12 weeks and any appeal within a further 12 weeks, six months in total.
McDowell said Senators had been told the Bill was going to “dramatically change and accelerate the circumstances in which asylum applications are dealt with”.
But he said unless Ireland was in a position to operate the 12-week border procedure for checking asylum seekers, “this Bill and our adherence to the pact are, by virtue of the Common Travel Area, almost set at naught”.
The Common Travel Area allows free movement of Irish and British citizens between both jurisdictions and McDowell questioned how the asylum procedures would be dealt with at the border.
He said the border procedure “can only take place following an application made at an external border crossing point or in a transit zone”.
The Minister had said the great majority of asylum applications were made by people who have transited into the State via the UK.
But the Senator said the procedure “is completely unworkable if it does not apply to people who turn up in Dublin having availed of the Common Travel Area to get in here”.
He asked the Minister to reply “yes or no” as to whether people who cross the Border from the United Kingdom and apply for asylum in Dublin could be dealt with under the asylum border procedure.
O’Callaghan told him there was an accelerated examination procedure and there was an asylum border procedure. “Both of them have to be done on an expedited basis,” he said.
An “external border crossing point” also means a port or a screening centre, where applicants will be sent to have their applications assessed.
Procedures “will be available to the determining authority, which is me and my officials. It is up to us to determine first-instance applications,” the Minister said.
New “pact-readiness teams were established in June 2025 and operations began in the Citywest reception centre”, he said.
This “phased approach” allowed the department “to test the ability of the international protection system in its entirety, to process cases within the required time frame of the future asylum border procedure and to make adjustments where necessary”, said O’Callaghan.
It helped them “identify pressure points and practical challenges across the process to create new standard operating procedures and to set out future training and needs”.
The Minister acknowledged concerns about whether the system would work effectively and within the timelines set out.
“I believe it will,” he said. “Ultimately, we will only be able to see that once the commencement starts on June 12th.
“The trial procedure operating at present with the pilot projects is being done within the time periods set out in the legislation.”
