Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can confirm that 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.

Making sure that applications are processed quickly means those who need our protection are given the opportunity to re-build their life in Ireland in a timely manner. It also means that those who do not qualify, return to their country of origin.

My Department have taken a significant number of measures to increase the capacity of the international protection system.

In November 2022, I introduced an accelerated procedure for international protection applicants from designated safe countries of origin. These applicants now typically receive a first instance decision in less than three months, a significant reduction from a norm of 22 to 26 months in recent years. For the year up to 31 January 2024 the number of applications from safe countries has reduced by more than 50% compared to previous 12 month period.

In July 2023, I published a report on the international protection modernisation programme for 2023 and 2024. This programme involved unparalleled investment in staff, panel members, re-engineered processes, and technology. We have implemented measures to improve efficiencies and throughput as well as enhancing the application, interview and decision-making process for applicants.

One of the priority areas of focus has been to recruit both civil servants and panel members, to increase case processing. The International Protection Office now has over 400 staff, an increase of 95% over 2022. The IPO made 2,482 first instance determinations in 2021, 4323 in 2022, 9,000 in 2023 and are confident of delivering over 14,000 decisions this year.

These reforms and increased staff numbers are having a significant impact with the median processing time for all first-instance decisions reducing from 18 months in 2022 down to 13 months in 2023. The median processing time for appeals was 5.5 months in 2023 down from 13.5 months at the start of 2022.

Reforms to the international protection process will continue in 2024. Approximately €34m additional funding was allocated in Budget 2024 to the International Protection Office (IPO) and the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) to continue to scale up processing. These measures, and all other aspects of the international protection modernisation programme will continue to be kept under review and improved on a continuous ongoing basis.

The table below shows the numbers of applications for asylum received monthly from January 2019 to 31 March 2024.

The increasing numbers of protection applications seen below highlight the importance of the EU Asylum and Migration Pact for Ireland. I recently secured Cabinet approval to seek the necessary approvals from the Houses of the Oireachtas to opt-in to the Pact.

The overall objectives of the Pact is to create a fair, sustainable and efficient asylum procedure in ordinary times as well as in times of migratory pressure and crisis situations.

It will harmonise asylum procedures across the EU, and speed up the processing of asylum applications so that people in need of our protection get it quickly and those who don’t are returned to their country of origin efficiently.

Applications received by month

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	April	May	June	July	August	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total
2019	411	344	368	344	385	384	445	415	667	436	289	294	4782
2020	306	246	177	30	16	41	107	118	173	128	64	160	1,566
2021	138	91	138	113	132	115	156	262	332	329	387	455	2,648
2022	391	750	1,032	1,172	1,543	1,603	1,265	1,130	1,060	1,189	1,313	1,197	13,645
2023	1,304	831	858	633	941	901	1,028	1,158	1,248	1,481	1,463	1,426	13,272
2024*	1,773	1,569	1,821										5,163

*To 31 March 2024.

*Please note, figures are correct at time of issue, however, all statistics may be subject to data cleansing.