THE SUPREME COURT will hear an appeal against a ruling that the State was not in breach of its human rights obligations over failing to provide basic needs, such as housing, to international protection applicants.

In March, the State launched an appeal of a High Court decision last year that ruled the State was in breach of its international human rights obligations over the failure to provide necessities to people seeking asylum in Ireland. 

The ruling opened up the possibility for the state to be sued in the future.

The Court of Appeal overturned that decision in July, stating that the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), which took the original case against the state, failed to uphold its claims that a lack of services impacted people’s health status.

The IHREC then sought to appeal the Court of Appeal ruling to the Supreme Court.

In a determination published today, a three-judge Supreme Court panel said it would grant permission to the IHREC to appeal against the ruling. 

It said its application “clearly satisfies the constitutional criteria” for appeal and that “several matters of general public importance” had been identified, including the interpretation of Article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

The three-judge panel said it was “in the interests of justice” that the Supreme Court hear the appeal “given the importance of the issues in these proceedings”.

It also cited “the wider impact of the resolution of those issues and the fact that the High Court and Court of Appeal reached conflicting conclusions on certain of those issues, leading to very different outcomes in those courts”. 

The determination noted that the State shares the IHREC’s view that the matter was of public importance and identified a number of “headline features”, including the potential liability of the State for what it called the “temporary inability to provide material reception conditions to a limited cohort of international protection applicants because of unprecedented circumstances”. 

The State also agreed the application and interpretation of Article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU was of importance.

The court said it expects to be in a position to allocate a hearing date “as soon as the appeal is ready for hearing”.