Mr. David Costello:

Thus far in 2018, the main home countries of asylum applicants are Syria, Georgia, Albania, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. The largest number of applicants come from Syria. That was also the case in 2017, when a significant number of applications were also received from people from Georgia, Albania, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. Some 1,647 applications were made this year to the end of June, of which approximately 266 were under the relocation programme. In the same period last year 1,278 were made, of which 226 were under the relocation programme. The 30% increase in the number of applications received is accounted for partly by an increased number of applications under the relocation programme.

On some cases being processed more rapidly than others, Syrians and some Iraqis who are being relocated from Greece are our main priority. Our staff travel to Greece with the co-operation of the European Asylum Support Office which is tasked with dealing with the relocation programme and the Greek asylum service to interview applicants before they come to Ireland. The applicants and their details are transferred to Ireland. Pre-screening, including a medical assessment, is carried out before applicants come to Ireland to ensure they will be able to access the support services they require when they arrive.

That is different from the other applicant who comes into my office from the street, for example, or who applies at a port of entry. The first time we encounter those applicants is when they come to our office. There is no pre-screening there.

In addition, we can process the relocated applicants more speedily because we do not carry out a full interview with them. We have gathered information about them in Greece and we also have comprehensive country of origin information on Syria provided to us by the UNHCR so we can determine those cases effectively on the papers. We can provide an expedited procedure based on the papers because the legislation provides for a well-founded application or claim. That is the reason we can do those in six to seven weeks.

As to other applicants, we have another stream which is the non-prioritised cases. We inherited a substantial backlog of those cases when the International Protection Act was commenced at the beginning of last year and we have had to concentrate on processing those cases before we can get to new cases. They all have to be fully interviewed in a more complex process than previously. That is the reason there are different timelines for the relocation and non-relocation cases.