Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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135. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons who made application for asylum and-or refugee status in each year from 2004 and in 2015 to date; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13809/15]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I refer the Deputy to my reply to Parliamentary Question No. 307 of 10 March 2015 which is set out as follows:

I am advised by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) of my Department that details of the number of persons who applied for asylum for the years 2002 to 2013 are published in the annual reports of the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner which are available at: .

Provisional monthly statistics for 2014 and 2015 are also available on the site. In that regard, it should be noted that there were 1,448 applications for asylum in 2014 which represents an increase of 53% on the previous year. The rate of increase in the number of applications is accelerating to date this year with 416 applications recorded for the first two months of 2015 compared to a total of 181 for the same period in 2014.