Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 21 October 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration
General Scheme of the International Protection Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed)
2:00 am
Mr. Nick Henderson:
In our experience of working with people in that situation, somebody may still believe they are at risk in their country. We are working with people in this situation who have been through a very fast process, have struggled to get access to legal advice, have received a negative decision and simply remain very scared of the idea of going back to their country. The second issue is that people may not be able to be documented by their country. There can be issues around a person's country refusing to take that person or requiring a difficult or technical documentation process so the person can be returned. I return to that point of the five days. They have a five-day window in which they have the option of pursuing voluntary return as opposed to forced deportation, which in our experience, given everything we all have said, is a very pressurised period. Somebody may need to get access to support, advice, counselling and that can be very challenging.
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