Asylum and Nationals of Member States of the European Union: Information Note

Application by Ireland of EU Treaty Protocol on Asylum for Nationals of Member States of the European Union

1. Subject to EU law, asylum applications are not accepted in Ireland from nationals of other Member States of the European Union¹.

2. This arises from the application of the EU Treaty Protocol on Asylum for Nationals of Member States of the European Union which, given the level of protection of fundamental rights and freedoms by the Member States, provides that any application for asylum made by a national of a Member State may be taken into consideration or declared admissible for processing by another Member State only in very exceptional circumstances.
 
3. The application of this Protocol means that nationals of EU Member States will not be allowed to enter the asylum process and will not be provided with accommodation by the Reception and Integration Agency.

4. In accordance with the above, the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (which is the first instance decision making body in the Irish Asylum System) will not accept asylum applications from nationals of EU Member States.

Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service
January 2007

¹ The other Member States of the European Union are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom.