Tribunal failed to comply with statutory requirements regarding assessment of facts and circumstances when refusing international protection

Asylum and immigration – judicial review – Georgian national challenging the decision of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal refusing him international protection - claimed that if he returned to Georgia he would be killed because he is gay - made no reference in his questionnaire or his interview to any negative incidents or fears connected to political opinions – IPO held that it was not credible on the balance of probabilities that the applicant was a gay or bisexual man or that he had any loan issue in Georgia – appeal - confessed that his claim was false, that he was not gay and had never been in a relationship with a man - he explained that he fabricated a claim on the advice of another Georgian man who suggested he would have difficulty in securing a protection status if he did not apply in that way and would become liable for deportation - new claim at the hearing of his appeal – feared persecution due to his political opinions - that he was believed he would be targeted by the lenders of money he could not repay – tribunal’s decision – found that he has not provided anything remotely approaching a reasonable explanation for the huge inconsistency in the nature of his claim at different points in the protection process and find this inconsistency to be significantly undermining of his credibility – no reference in the Tribunal’s decision to an assessment of the new claim or of the claim he repeated about a loan - adverse credibility findings – legal issues – assessment of credibility - not open to the Tribunal to refuse a claim solely on the basis of a belated, voluntary disclosure at the commencement of the oral appeal hearing that the evidence previously advanced had been a fabrication - no basis in Irish or EU law for a decision-maker bound by the Qualification Directive to disregard its mandatory provisions on the basis of a falsified prior disclosure - irrational and manifestly unreasonable, having regard to the mandatory nature of s. 28 of the 2015 Act and/or Article 4 of the Qualification Directive, for a decision-maker to reject the material facts of the applicant’s claim on the sole basis of a voluntarily disclosed prior fabrication - mandatory requirements of section 28 - a proper application of s. 28 required the Tribunal to assess the elements of both the new claim about political activity and the repeated claim about a loan - Tribunal could not ignore the obligations that s. 28 clearly imposes on it and/or focus on just one of the many matters that s. 28 requires the Tribunal to assess and take account of in its decision - Tribunal’s assessment of the Applicant’s account - Tribunal did not conduct an assessment of the facts of the new claim or the repeated claim about the loan such as could ground a conclusion that either or both claims were deprived of credibility - Tribunal failed to conduct the appeal in accordance with s.28 - not in accordance with the Tribunal’s obligation to assess the applicant’s claim in the manner as set out in s. 28 – judicial review granted –