Sinn Féin committed to establishing a new immigration agency which would oversee the applications of those seeking international protection and cut processing times for these applications in half.

Thursday morning, the leader of Sinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald started the party election immigration proposals, which reinforce a commitment made this summer that new state-run accommodation centers would not be opened in working-class neighborhoods.

The party says it wants to increase the number of people processing asylum applications to 1,200. Currently, around 500 people are responsible for it. Ms. McDonald said this would allow the state to cut the application deadline in half. Last month, the median time to process a decision was 85 weeks.

Sinn Féin also pledged to end the €800 Accommodation Recognition payment made to families hosting refugees. refugees from Ukraine. Under the plan, new applicants would not be able to join the scheme because, according to the party, it “puts other families and people seeking to rent private accommodation at a serious disadvantage”.

The party also said it would explore the possibility of introducing registration requirements for Swiss EU/EEA citizens to collect information. Sinn Féin TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said registration in an EU country is “quite common” and it is “important that the information is there to understand the flows of people in and out of the country”. He said it was “worth exploring” to “ensure you have adequate data to properly manage the migration.”

Ms McDonald also said there should be “an orderly conclusion to Ukraine’s status under the Temporary Protection Directive”, which is due to end in March 2026, a policy that Sinn Féin had also initially launched in during the summer.

Meanwhile, Ms McDonald said that if Sinn Féin enters government, within the first 100 days a Minister of State for Reunification would be appointed in the Taoiseach’s Department, a Green Paper on Reunification would be drawn up and a citizens’ assembly would be formed. . Ms McDonald said conversations would then take place with the UK Government to discuss the “tipping point” for holding a border poll.

At the same event, the Sinn Féin leader also condemned the candidacy of Gerard “The Monk” Hutch for the first time in the campaign. “I represent communities that have suffered from this so-called gang war. I represent communities that suffered the ravages of the heroin epidemic in the 1980s. I categorically condemn Gerry Hutch, or anyone else involved in crime.