The Supreme Court has overturned High Court rulings in favour of a Georgian international protection applicant who had been denied permission to work while his protection claim was being processed.
Mr Justice Gerard Hogan delivered judgment on 16 April 2026, holding that the International Protection Appeals Tribunal's March 2021 decision refusing labour-market access was legally valid. The State's appeals against two earlier High Court judgments were therefore allowed.
The applicant, identified as Mr K., applied for international protection on 2 September 2019. EU law required access to the labour market after nine months where no first-instance protection decision had been made and the delay could not be attributed to the applicant.
The High Court had previously found that the Tribunal wrongly attributed the delay to Mr K. and that Irish regulations had failed properly to transpose EU law. It later awarded him €21,877.44 in damages for lost income.
The Supreme Court referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union. In January 2026, that court ruled that delays must be assessed proportionately: an applicant can be held responsible only for the part actually caused by his or her conduct. It also held that the Irish regulations were compatible with the EU directive.
Applying that ruling, the Supreme Court found that Mr K. could not be blamed for delays between September 2019 and late April 2020. These included a missed interview of which he had not been notified, time spent securing legal representation and difficulties obtaining a Georgian interpreter during the early Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the court found no explanation for delay after the end of April 2020. Even giving Mr K. the benefit of every reasonable allowance, he therefore could not show nine months of delay for which he bore no responsibility.
The Tribunal's refusal of labour-market access was accordingly upheld and the damages claim failed. The court noted that Mr K. was later permitted to work and had also received permission to remain in Ireland, neither of which was directly at issue in the appeal.