Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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585. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the monthly number of refusals for permission to remain by total figures; and the number of years each applicant who was refused has been within the international protection system. [34531/20]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department looks at all international protection applications made in the State on a case by case basis in accordance with the legislation, the International Protection Act 2015. If an applicant fails in their International Protection claim, they may seek humanitarian leave to remain. Each consideration takes into account a number of factors as set out in section 49 of the Act.

Since the International Protection Act 2015 commenced on 31 December 2016, the International Protection Office has carried out the function of considering Permission to Remain (under section 49 of the 2015 Act), in respect of those applicants who have been refused international protection at first instance.

The statistics below are correct as of 6 November 2020, but may be subject to data cleansing.

Table 1

Table 2 below sets out by date the number of persons refused permission to remain following a review of a negative permission to remain decision. It should be noted that there were no permission to remain reviews completed during 2017.

Table 2 *

* Persons in this table are included in table 1.

Table 3 below shows the number of years each applicant has been within the international protection system. These figures include decisions made under Table 2 (PTR Review decisions).

As can be seen from the figures in Table 3, over 92% of all refusals to remain (including reviews of earlier refusal decisions) are considered within 3 years of the date of application. The length of time stated in the table is not the time taken from application to the issuing of a first instance decision rather the total time an application is in the process. This can include time in respect of an appeal, where an applicant has appealed a first instance recommendation in respect of their international protection application and where an applicant may also have challenged a decision by way of Judicial Review, which can significantly increase the processing times to final decision stage of an application.