The Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI) calls on the Minister for Justice to implement the recommendation by the Catherine Day Advisory Group to use her discretionary power to grant permission to remain to people who have been in the asylum process for 2 years at the end of 2020.[1] The Minister has not committed to implementing this recommendation. MASI is concerned that the Department of Justice is not using the opportunity provided by Covid-19 related travel restrictions in reducing number of new asylum claims in the State to ramp up processing of long standing backlogs. The average processing time at the International Protection Office was more than 17 months in 2020. For a long time asylum seekers have spent more than a year waiting for an initial decision on their asylum claim, even prior to the pandemic.
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