Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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201. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the cost of the asylum process for each of the past five years. [8512/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department takes all necessary steps to manage the international protection process efficiently and effectively, while ensuring the integrity of those processes is maintained at all times. I am taking a number of steps to improve how our International Protection system works. In increasing capacity and speeding up decision making, we can ensure that those who have a right to international protection are given that status as quickly as possible, and those who are found not to have a right to international protection, or other basis for remaining, return to their country of origin.

In July of 2023, I published a report on the international protection modernisation programme for 2023 and 2024. This programme is implementing measures to improve efficiencies and throughput as well as enhancing the application, interview and decision-making process for applicants.

Over the course of the last year, the IPO increased the number of monthly determinations to over 1,000 in November 2023, and plans to deliver at least 14,000 decisions in 2024, a further increase of 5,000 cases.

The table below details core funding to the IPO and the IPAT since 2019. This significant increase in funding has allowed us to increase the number of decisions being issued every month.

Certain ancillary costs are incurred by the Department centrally and not captured by the budgets specifically assigned to IPO and IPAT.

Costs detailed in this PQ do not cover costs incurred by other Departments and agencies including those incurred by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

Total estimate of IPO and IPAT expenditure 2019-2023 (pay and non-pay)

Note:

In 2020 DOJ implemented a transformation programme moving from a subject-based structure to a functional operating model. As a result the costs from 2020 onward are not directly comparable with the costs incurred pre transformation as a number of expenditure areas were restructured as core departmental functions.

In 2020 as part of the transformation programme IPO Salary costs were included in ISD Administration salaries and an estimated adjustment has been made to include those values in the total costs for IPO.

IPAT has a separate cost centre and no estimate adjustment required - all IPAT costs are actuals.