The effort by the Government to reduce inward migration to Ireland is well under way. But it seems to be mostly focused on the smallest cohort of the people who arrive here – asylum seekers. They also happen to be the easiest target.

A new streamlined system for assessing the claims of people who arrive in Ireland to seek asylum is doing exactly what it was intended to do – it is turning down most of the people who apply. As Jack Power reported in Monday’s Irish Times, nine out of 10 asylum seekers whose requests for international protection were assessed using a fast-track procedure now being rolled out on a permanent basis had their claims rejected.

This was described in internal Department of Justice briefings, which reported on the trial operation of the accelerated system, as “very encouraging”. Under the new EU migration pact, that fast-track system is now being rolled out generally. It will decide quickly that most asylum seekers do not qualify, hear their appeals quickly, turn most of them down, and then seek to ensure they leave the country. Court actions may challenge a final refusal, but they are getting harder to do.

The tougher regime on asylum, or international protection, will not just mean more people are turned down and compelled to leave Ireland. It will mean, almost certainly, that fewer people come here in the first place, preferring to take their chances elsewhere. That is just the way the system works – flows of people respond to incentives, and to disincentives.

Lindsey Graham,........

© The Irish Times