10 signatures reached
To: 1. The Minister for Justice, 2. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, 3. The Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA), 4. The Law Society of Ireland, 5. The legal Aid Board
Stop the Silence: Protect Asylum Seekers from Failing Legal Representation in Ireland"
Dear Minister for Justice / Members of the Joint Committee on Justice,
I am writing to urge you to act on a serious and ongoing failure in Ireland's International Protection system — one that is quietly destroying lives while the people affected are too frightened and too powerless to speak for themselves.
People who have fled war, persecution, and terror are arriving in Ireland and being assigned legal representation to help them navigate the International Protection appeals process. But in too many cases, that representation is failing them at the most critical moment of their lives.
Community organisations working directly with these families have documented a consistent pattern:
Clients are being handed signature pages and told to sign documents they have never read — appeal submissions lodged in their name, about their lives, without their knowledge or consent.
Clients are arriving at their oral hearings before the International Protection Appeals Tribunal with no preparation whatsoever — no meeting with their solicitor, no explanation of procedure, no practice with questions. They face the most important hearing of their lives completely alone.
Solicitors are going silent for weeks — not returning calls, not answering emails — leaving clients in the dark about their own cases while their hearing date approaches.
Appeals are being submitted that have nothing to do with the individual's actual story — generic, templated documents that fail to engage with the specific facts of each person's claim.
These are not accidents. This is a pattern. And when it fails, the consequences are catastrophic: refused protection, deportation orders, family separation, and return to countries where people face real danger.
Ireland has signed international conventions promising fair treatment to those who seek protection here. Our Constitution guarantees equality before the law. These promises mean nothing if the legal system designed to deliver them is broken in practice.
I am calling on you to:
Act now to investigate this pattern and hold a formal inquiry into the standard of legal representation provided to International Protection applicants and appellants in Ireland.
Introduce mandatory minimum standards for solicitors practising in this area — including obligations around client consultation, hearing preparation, and document transparency.
Ensure every asylum seeker has the right to see every document submitted in their name before it is submitted — and that this right is legally enforceable.
Properly resource the Legal Aid Board so that those without means can access genuinely competent legal assistance, not just nominal representation.
Ireland knows what it is to be a people who needed the welcome and fairness of another country. That memory is part of who we are. Let it be part of how we govern.
I urge you not to look away from this.
Yours sincerely,
Why is this important?
In Ireland today, people who have survived war, torture, and persecution are being let down by the very legal system that is supposed to protect them.
We are not talking about paperwork delays or administrative inconvenience. We are talking about people whose lives — and whose children's lives — depend entirely on what happens in their legal proceedings. And in too many cases, those proceedings are being handled in a way that falls far short of what any decent standard of justice requires.
At Emerald Welcome Centre, we have walked alongside these families. We have seen things that keep us awake at night.
We have seen a mother handed a signature page and told to sign — without ever being shown the appeal document lodged in her name. She did not know what story had been told on her behalf. It was not her story.
We have seen a man arrive at his International Protection hearing — the most important moment of his entire journey through this system — having had no contact with his solicitor in the weeks beforehand. No preparation. No briefing. No one in his corner. He walked into that room alone.
We have seen families wait in silence for weeks, calling and texting a solicitor who did not respond, not knowing whether they still had legal representation, not knowing whether their hearing was still scheduled, living in a state of unbearable uncertainty that no human being should be asked to endure.
These are not edge cases. This is a pattern. And it is happening to some of the most vulnerable people in Ireland — people who do not have the power, the language, or the legal knowledge to challenge it themselves.
This is why we need you.
Not because you are a lawyer. Not because you are an expert in asylum law. But because you are a person who believes that fairness matters. That every human being — regardless of where they were born or what passport they carry — deserves to be treated with dignity when they stand before the Irish legal system.
Ireland has a proud tradition of solidarity. We are a nation that remembers what it meant to be the emigrant, the stranger, the one who needed another country's kindness to survive. That memory is not just history. It is a call to action.
When you sign this petition, you are telling the Irish Government: we are watching, we care, and we expect better.
You are giving a voice to people who cannot safely speak for themselves right now — because they are still inside the system, still waiting, still hoping that Ireland will be everything it promises to be.
Please sign. Please share. And please know that your name on this petition is not a small thing. It is an act of solidarity with some of the bravest people in this country.