Ms Oonagh Buckley:

I thank the Deputy. I am sorry; I should have said in my previous contribution that the tragedy yesterday affected all of us deeply. The desperation of people who wish to move and apply for asylum cannot be underestimated. It was a tragic incident. In some respects, Ireland is relatively lucky in that we are just that bit further away and so we do not have people trying to cross to us using difficult means and approaches. In fact, most people who apply for asylum in Ireland either do so directly at Dublin Airport or present themselves at our offices in Dublin city centre. That is generally how people apply for asylum in Ireland.

On the legacy cases, the International Protection Office was established under the 2015 legislation. It was up and running in 2015-16, and replaced its predecessor office. Based on legal advice given at the time, any cases in the system in 2015 had to be redone by the IPO. Effectively, therefore, the IPO started out already dealing with thousands of cases that it had to redo. The people concerned were in the system for a long time. In fact, on foot of a recommendation made by Mr. Justice McMahon, who led a group to make recommendations concerning improvements in the direct provision system, a number of the people who had been waiting were effectively given permission to remain, based on the length of time they had already spent in the system.

We do not want that situation to arise again. From our perspective, we do not want to go into 2024 with a large backlog of legacy cases that we will still have to clear. We would have to do that in sequential order because that is the way the prioritisation we have agreed with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, works. Mr. Delaney and his colleagues are working hard on changing the way in which we make decisions. As members will appreciate, it is difficult to change the direction of a large bureaucracy, but we are trying to do that as we move along. Some substantial changes have already been agreed with the staff and those are being implemented as we speak.

In the event that the effect of these changes is not as we might hope and people are not getting their decisions in reasonably smart order, we have committed to reviewing the situation by October of next year. The likely outcome is that we will give consideration to persons who have been in the system and, based on the assumption that they have passed security checks and so forth, they will be given permission to remain in those circumstances. The Minister intends to bring proposals to government shortly concerning undocumented persons in Ireland. These are a different group of people. They are not in the international protection system, but people who have come to Ireland and are here on an undocumented basis. Those proposals will also be dealt with by the Department and the immigration services system next year. Similarly, we will seek to give some structure, comfort and immigration consent to that group of people in our society who otherwise would be vulnerable.

Co-operation with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth was mentioned. We have the advantage that the people we are dealing with in that Department were officials of the Department of Justice until the summer of last year. We have worked closely with them. Having been responsible for the direct provision system for 20 years, we understand how difficult that task is and we are committed to assisting them. It is useful that we are able now to focus on those recommendations which arise under our remit, namely, those related to processing. As somebody who was responsible for the direct provision system until the summer of last year, that that is an all-consuming policy area and a difficult one to manage. Consequently, it was not possible for us to give our attention to improving our processing times in the way we might have wished. The full focus of our intention is now on improving the processing of applications and that will obviously be of assistance to our colleagues in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth as well because once we have given people permission to remain, they will be able to move on with their lives in Ireland.

I should point out that a substantial number of people with permission to remain are always in the direct provision system. Due to the difficulties encountered in securing housing, I understand that well over 1,000 people with permission to remain are residing in the direct provision system. That has been a persistent problem for the last few years because of the broader issue involved in getting housing.

Regarding what happens in other countries, I understand the Deputy's query as whether we keep abreast of developments in other countries. Certainly, we do so. Decisions are taken on the cases of people in the international protection process based on the circumstances in their countries of origin. Obviously, decisions are also taken in light of whether it would be feasible to return people to those countries of origin. Good examples of that include Syria and Afghanistan, given the situation there in recent times.

I acknowledge the Deputy's point that Ireland is now a multicultural society. Those people coming through the international protection system and who have been given permission to remain in Ireland, or refugee status, are certainly contributing significantly to modern Ireland. It is great that they are now a part of our society. We are strongly supportive of the efforts of our colleagues in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to promote their integration more generally.

I mentioned in the context of the review next year that by October 2022, we will have a firm idea as to whether our efforts to deal with the backlog of legacy cases have been sufficient or whether we need to take further steps.