President Michael D Higgins has questioned why reform of the direct provision system was not part of the discussions on the formation of the new Government.
A report last year on reforming the system by Mr Justice Bryan McMahon called for a once-off amnesty for any asylum seeker in the system for more than five years.
The Department of Justice has insisted that the Government is fully committed to implementing the report.
Mr Higgins' comments on asylum reform in a newspaper interview have attracted particular attention.
He said he had followed the demands of those seeking to form a Government, but those did not include a commitment to implement the report into direct provision.
Last year, Judge McMahon made several recommendations for around 5,000 asylum seekers, including reducing waiting times and improving living conditions.
However, an explicit commitment to implement the report was left out of the final version of the Programme for Government.
Mr Higgins told the Irish Times the proposals would mean considerable progress but they were not on the Government's agenda.
Others, including Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, have also criticised the omission.
The Department of Justice said today that the Government was fully committed to implementing the McMahon Report.
