Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chair. I welcome the proposal by the Minister for Justice, and I and my Department look forward to working with her and across Government on its implementation.

Ireland, like many other European countries, is experiencing a significant increase in the number of people seeking international protection. The arrival numbers remain significantly elevated. Up to mid-June of this year, over 10,000 people had arrived in Ireland seeking international protection from the State. The average in 2022 and 2023 was in the region of 250 per week.

That placed Ireland at the EU average per capitafor numbers of people seeking international protection. We have gone from a situation in which the numbers seeking international protection in Ireland were, comparatively, extremely low to a situation in which we are receiving the EU average. That has created challenges, undoubtedly. They are challenges to which the Government continues to respond. It has required us to completely rebuild our international protection system to meet these EU-average numbers coming to this country. That means improving the processing of applications and increasing the amount of accommodation we have for people while their applications are being accessed.

In order to provide that additional accommodation, since January 2022, the Government has brought more than 200 properties into use to ensure a supply of accommodation for those seeking shelter in Ireland. Currently, there are 31,000 people accommodated in the IPAS system, of whom just more than 7,700 are children. This is compared to 8,700 at the end of February 2022. As we face into the challenges of processing and accommodating all of those seeking international protection, the EU asylum and migration pact will be crucial in ensuring cross-border co-operation in what is a fundamentally global phenomenon in the years ahead. I welcome that this pact will introduce legally-binding timeframes for making decisions on international protection applicants and appeals and will ensure fairness for those who are applying for international protection. They will have the knowledge their application will be dealt with in a timely manner. We all know of instances in this country whereby people have been seeking their international protection application for three, four, five, six, seven or eight years. They are in stasis and in limbo. They are unable to actually get on with a life in Ireland or unable to get clarity that their future does not lie here. By speeding up international protection applications and by making clear statutory timelines to which State institutions have to adhere, we are giving people the opportunity for clarity as to what their position is here in Ireland.

The pact will also address a previous lack of targeted mechanisms to deal with situations of extreme crisis. In recent months, a significant increase in applications has been seen, not just in Ireland but in the UK and right across Europe. These new mechanisms will allow member states to approach any future crisis situation on a European-wide basis.

The measures my Department is working on are pragmatic. There are strategic solutions contained within the comprehensive accommodation strategy that was approved by the Government in March 2024. The work of the comprehensive accommodation strategy aligns with some of the measures foreseen by the pact identified as practical solutions for our State within a reality of long-term migration. My Department will provide infrastructure, human resources and funding for integration efforts. Material reception conditions should be available to applicants when they express their wish to apply for international protection. We will put in place mechanisms for accessing and addressing the needs of the reception systems, including mechanisms for verifying applicants' actual presence in the accommodation. Obviously, such mechanisms should not restrict an applicant's freedom of movement.

My Department is focused on the delivery of State-owned accommodation. As we know, we have been overly reliant on the use of private accommodation. We are moving our system towards one that has a core of 14,000 State-owned accommodation beds. The comprehensive accommodation strategy also seeks to address the current accommodation shortfall while making that move to a longer-term system.

As for the updated strategy, accommodation is being delivered through a blended approach between the purchase of large-scale turnkey properties and the delivery on State-owned sites. In the months since the launch of that strategy, we have already brought two State-owned sites into use and work is under way on a third site to bring it into use.

I wish to take this opportunity to commend the Minister, Deputy McEntee, on her work in increasing the speed by which the applications of international protection applicants are processed. Significant resources have been put into the IPO and we are seeing the benefit of that.

Clearly, global migration is not something to which Ireland responds alone. We have seen what has happened when our closest neighbours decided to go it alone and to withdraw from EU mechanisms. They have even less control of their borders than they did prior to Brexit. States must work together to address major crises and this is why I am happy to support the EU asylum and migration pact.

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