Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O’Brien, to the House.

Ollie Crowe (Fianna Fail)
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I would like to ask the Minister for Justice, in the context of confirming that six in every ten applications for international protection, IP, in Ireland are refused, what was the total number of official deportations from the State arising from such refusals in the six months up to 31 December 2023. I will leave it at that for now.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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I first want to apologise to the House for my delay this morning. There was an unexpected event that I did not plan for, so I apologise to everyone for the delay that has caused.

I thank Senator Crowe for raising this matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee. As the Senator will be aware, the international protection system is currently undergoing a significant modernisation programme to ensure it is agile, robust and fully resourced in order to meet demand. Investments to date have significantly improved processing times, with a doubling of decisions made in 2023 from the year before.

Over the course of 2024, it is the aim of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, to even further increase capacity and processing times. This is all with the aim of ensuring that those who are seeking international protection can have their application assessed as quickly as possible. It is important to note that every person has the right to come here and seek international protection. Once a person's application has been assessed, however, those who are found not to have a legal right to remain in this country will be informed that they must remove themselves from the State. In this scenario, the individual’s case to remain in the State will have been considered in great detail.

In the final months of 2023, a total of 274 deportation orders were signed for persons who had unsuccessful applications for international protection. Some 26 people who were refused international protection were deported. Enforced deportations are used as a matter of last resort, where the person concerned has not removed themselves or engaged with the Department's voluntary return programme. It is the case that many individuals who were subject to deportation orders have left the State without notifying the relevant authorities. The Garda National Immigration Bureau, GNIB, has reviewed a large sample of the cases that were subject to deportation orders. Their inquiries suggest that a very significant number of these individuals have left the State.

The Department of Justice is also looking at new processes to further strengthen the system and ensure those who have not been successful in their applications for international protection are assisted to leave the State where required. It is the intention of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, that these new processes will become available to the State as soon as possible.

Ollie Crowe (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for his detailed response. To me, the figures really do not seem to be adding up at first glance. The Minister stated that the Garda National Immigration Bureau “has reviewed a large sample of the cases that were subject to deportation orders. Their inquiries suggest a very significant number of these individuals have left the State.”. Could we get any further details on that? Certainly, 26 people in the space of six months does not seem to add up in relation to the sample.

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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The Department has made significant investment in staff, technology and re-engineering processes at the IPO and that investment is delivering. Over the course of the past year, we tripled the number of monthly decisions for processing times for applicants from safe countries, reduced under ten weeks, with numbers arriving from them dropping considerably, too.

To my own knowledge, when people exhaust the international protection process, they will eventually get to a stage where they have no entitlement to any State supports. Very often, they will leave in that case. They will have no access to housing, social welfare, employment or anything like that. When they get what is called a “section 3 letter”, which is a notification of intention to deport, they very often will know that the writing is on the wall, and they will then leave at that stage. I know that from my own professional experience and background as well. It is only ever a small proportion of those who exhaust the system and end up getting deportation orders, which are very expensive. In terms of the rates of deportation orders, that is an average of what we have had in recent years. I understand it is on the rise.