How the Irish Government Could Push for an All-Island Asylum Policy

The Irish border issue looks to become septic yet again. Not through Brexit mishaps or the perennial issues of smuggling and paramilitarism but the very 21st phenomenon of mass migration.Belfast, not Rosslare or Dublin Airport is becoming the primary entry point for asylum seekers flooding into the Republic with the Department of Justice reports landing on the desk of Joe O’Callaghan confirming the statistical reality of 80% of claimants arriving north of the border.

An ominous trend even to otherwise complacent Dublin mandarins, recent saber-rattling by Brexit diehards in the Tory party in the concluding days of the Sunak government as well as obvious warnings from history emphasis the need for the issue to be tackled fast and responsibly.

The question of what to do with Nordie asylum claims is a good testing ground for the coalition’s supposedly new “tough” stance on illegal migration and one which the Irish government has surprising leeway on the issue thanks to the new Starmer premiership and its strong Irish caucus.

The starting point of any Common all-Ireland asylum policy is the Common Travel Area, so far without any provision for asylum procedures. This month’s pow-wowing between the British and Irish governments ahead of St Patrick’s Day is a good springboard for a future bilateral agreement with the Irish government well within its rights to trigger Strand Three of the Good Friday Agreement covering cross-border cooperation on security and migration.

The aim of invoking the GFA would be to strategically establish joint asylum rules specific to the island of Ireland, separate from wider UK immigration policy.

Recent headaches caused by Tory intransigence over the Brexit backstop and the inherent risk of the occupied six counties slipping into anarchy make the issue of a new migration accord topical for the Starmer premiership.

An agreement similar to the Dublin III Regulation (which governs asylum transfers within the EU) could be adapted for Ireland and the North of Ireland, ensuring asylum seekers are processed in their first safe territory-namely Belfast, not Mount Street.

Anglo-Irish cooperation is in something of a goldilocks zone at the moment, with a growing likelihood of a phased British withdrawal from administering the region an added incentive for both sides of the table.

Ireland could lobby the EU to intervene and pressure the UK into a coordinated asylum system as part of post-Brexit migration cooperation through a “Return and Processing Agreement” covering the entire island to be built into the modified CTA.

In tandem with a unified clampdown at Dublin, Rosslare, and Belfast common data sharing agreements on biometric databases, fingerprinting as well as facial recognition could be introduced in both jurisdictions based on the above agreements.

A natural extension of this clampdown would be data tracking via Irish Rail & Bus Éireann ticketing systems to track cross-border movements, again forming the basis of wider harmonisation.It is rather easy for the Republic of Ireland to classify the UK as a “Safe Third Country,” meaning asylum seekers who transited through the UK before arriving in Ireland could be returned to the UK for processing.

To reduce “asylum processing” Ireland and Stormont could establish cross-border asylum processing centers, where claims would be assessed under harmonised asylum criteria amid a broader alignment of deportation and processing criteria.An easy win for Dublin, London, and an SF-administered Stormont this harmonisation process is an open door for responsible asylum policies and forms the backbone for future radical endeavours event extending to remigration.

A common asylum policy between both states on this island is a very rare win-win scenario for Dublin, northern nationalists, and even hardline loyalists at a time when the UK ventures more and more into the terminal phases of replacement migration.

Securing the peace in the North, keeping extremism at bay, and protecting the CTA and GFA are all cornerstones of progressive policy in Ireland. For a post-Brexit responsible outlook on migration management, the aforementioned policies are essential for both sides of the sectarian divide in the North and gel perfectly with a more flexible London government seeking to reduce its exposure to the Irish question.