S.A. v The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and Ors, R.J. v The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and Ors

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: High Court
• Judge: Mr Justice Cian Ferriter
• Judgment Date: 19 February 2026
• Neutral Citation: [2026] IEHC 90
• Docket Number: Record No: 2023/209 JR

In the Matter of Directive 2013/33/EU and The EU (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2018

Between:

S.A.

Applicant

and

The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Ireland and The Attorney General

Respondents

Between:

R.J.

Applicant

and

Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration & Youth, Ireland and The Attorney General

Respondents

[2026] IEHC 90

Record No: 2023/209 JR

Record No: 2023/541 JR

THE HIGH COURT

JUDICIAL REVIEW

Francovich damages – Quantum – Material reception conditions – Applicants seeking Francovich damages – Whether the respondents breached the applicants’ entitlement to material reception conditions as international applicants

Facts: The High Court gave judgment on the quantum of Francovich damages to be awarded to each of the applicants (A and J) for the admitted breach by the respondents (the State) of their entitlement to material reception conditions as international applicants and to respect for their dignity under article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In assessing an appropriate level of compensatory damages for A, Ferriter J had regard to the following factors: (i) the nature of the rights breached; (ii) the fact that he was in a particularly vulnerable physical and psychological state during the period of his street homelessness; (iii) that he was street homeless at a particularly cold and wet time of the year; (iv) that the period of street homelessness was lengthy at 71 days; (v) that he lived in a state of fear while on the streets; (vi) that he found the experience of homelessness humiliating and distressing; (vii) that the State failed to provide him with any meaningful financial support at all in the first 50 days of his period of homeless and the financial support provided thereafter was insufficient to meet his basic needs; (viii) that he did get a couple of nights accommodation and some food from fellow Afghan nationals while otherwise sleeping rough in North Dublin; and (ix) that credit should be given to the State in an equitable assessment of the overall circumstances for ensuring that experienced charity services were in a position to provide meals and some access to washing and sanitation facilities to people in the position of A - the lack of financial assistance provided did mean that A was unable to avail of those services in any meaningful way.

Ferriter J, in assessing an appropriate level of compensatory damages for J, had regard to the following factors: (i) the nature of the rights breached; (ii) that his period of street homelessness covered at least a significant period when it was a cold and wet time of the year; (iii) that the period of street homelessness was lengthy at 63 days; (iv) that he was subjected to racist abuse while on the streets and lived in constant fear of being attacked; (v) that his period on the street caused him physical and mental stress; (vi) that the State failed to provide him with any meaningful financial support at all in the first month of his period of street homelessness which led to him experiencing periods of real hunger and the financial support thereafter was insufficient to allow him meet his basic needs; (vii) that credit should be given to the State in an equitable assessment of the overall circumstances for ensuring that experienced charity services were in a position to provide meals and reasonable access to washing and sanitation facilities which J was able to avail to a reasonable extent at least during daytimes during the week.

Ferriter J awarded damages to A in the sum of €9,500 and to J in the sum of €6,000.

Damages awarded to applicants.

Judgment of Mr Justice Cian Ferriter delivered this 19 ^th day of February 2026 (Quantum)

Introduction

1 This is my judgment on the quantum of Francovich damages to be awarded to each of the applicants for the admitted breach by the respondents (“the State”) of their entitlement to material reception conditions as international applicants and to respect for their dignity under article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (“the Charter”).

Background

2 The applicants in these proceedings arrived in Ireland in mid-February (in the case of Mr. A.) and mid-March (in the case of Mr. J.) of 2023 and each sought international protection. Both applicants qualified for “material reception conditions” under the relevant EU and Irish legislation for international protection applicants, being the Reception Conditions Directive 2013/33/EU (“the Directive”) which is transposed into Irish law by the European Communities (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2018 ( S.I. 230/2018) (“the Regulations”). Such conditions include the basic needs of accommodation, food, clothing and access to personal hygiene facilities.

3 The State failed to provide the applicants with accommodation and related entitlements. As a result, Mr. A. spent 71 days homeless on the streets. Mr. J. was street homeless for 63 days. The State accepts that the applicants were denied their entitlements to accommodation under the relevant legislation.

4 As I noted in my first judgment, a number of cases concerning international protection applicants who were left homeless came before the courts earlier in 2023 when the problem of the State's inability to provide accommodation to all international protection applicants first started to manifest itself. Many of these applicants sought urgent injunctive relief to ensure that they were provided with accommodation. In S.Y. v Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth [2023] IEHC 187 (“ S.Y.”), Meenan J. held that the State was in breach of its obligations under the Regulations and Article 1 of the Charter in failing to provide an international protection applicant with accommodation and granted the following declarations, despite opposition from the State:

• (i) A Declaration that the Minister's failure to provide to the applicant the “material reception conditions” pursuant to the European Union (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2018 is unlawful;

• (ii) A Declaration that the failure by the Minister to provide to the applicant the “material reception conditions” pursuant to European Union (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2018 is in breach of the applicant's rights under Article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

5 The State accepted that similar declarations are appropriate in each of the applicants' cases here. This was before the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the IHREC proceedings referenced below.

Claim for Damages

6 The applicants claim damages arising from the failure of the State to provide for their basic needs. They submitted that the criteria for an award of Francovich damages were met on the facts of these cases. Those criteria are set out in Joined Cases C-46/93 and C-48/93 Brasserie du Pêcheur S.A. v. Germany and the Queen v Secretary of State for Transport, ex parte Factortame Ltd (“ Brasserie/Factortame”), at para. 51:

“ …Community law confers a right to reparation where three conditions are met: the rule of law infringed must be intended to confer rights on individuals; the breach must be sufficiently serious; and there must be a direct causal link between the breach of the obligation resting on the State and the damage sustained by the injured parties.”

7 The Court of Justice elaborated on the second limb (that the breach must be sufficiently serious) as follows (at paras 55 and 56):

“ 55. As to the second condition, as regards both Community liability under Article 215 and Member State liability for breaches of Community law, the decisive test for finding that a breach of Community law is sufficiently serious is whether the Member State or the Community institution concerned manifestly and gravely disregarded the limits on its discretion.

56. The factors which the competent court may take into consideration include the clarity and precision of the rule breached, the measure of discretion left by that rule to the national or Community authorities, whether the infringement and the damage caused was intentional or involuntary, whether any error of law was excusable or inexcusable, the fact that the position taken by a Community institution may have contributed towards the omission, and the adoption or retention of national measures or practices contrary to Community law.”

8 The State opposed the claims for damages on the basis that the failure to provide the applicants with accommodation, in particular, arose from the force majeure circumstances of saturation of available international protection accommodation capacity stemming from the huge influx of Ukrainian refugees arising from the war in Ukraine and an unexpectedly large increase in the numbers of other international protection applicants arriving in Ireland in the same period. The State contended that such circumstances were beyond its control and unavoidable and therefore provided a defence to the claim for Francovich damages within the second limb of the Brasserie du Pêcheur/Factortame test or otherwise. The applicants for their part maintained that a force majeure defence could not be invoked by the State.

9 After a hearing in November 2023, in a judgment delivered on 13 December 2023 (“my first judgment”), I referred the following questions to the CJEU:

• (1) Where “force majeure” is not found as a defence in the Directive or implementing Regulations in issue, is such a defence nonetheless available as a defence to a Francovich damages claim for a breach of an EU law obligation that confers rights on individuals which derive from the fundamental right to human dignity contained in Article 1 of the Charter (whether as a defence within the second limb of the Brasserie du Pêcheur/Factortame test or otherwise)?

• (2) If the answer to question (1) is “yes”, what are the parameters and proper scope...