Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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1442.To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of staff who have been employed by IPAS to process asylum applicants this year and for each of the past five years. [31139/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I can assure the Deputy that I am fully committed to ensuring that Ireland’s International Protection system is robust and rules based, and that our borders are protected.

I have significantly increased investment into the international protection system, which has allowed for a major increase in processing capacity and the introduction of accelerated processing.

Last July, I published a report on the international protection modernisation programme for 2023 and 2024. This programme involved unparalleled investment in staff, panel members, reengineered 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. This has already demonstrated results with the IPO confident of delivering over 14,000 decisions this year.

Recent strategic policy and operational approaches to speed up applications from safe countries and the country with the highest number of applications are also proving effective. Applications from designated safe countries have dropped by more than 50% since I introduced the accelerated procedure.

One of the priority areas of focus has been to recruit both civil servants and panel members to increase case processing. The IPO now has 483 staff, an increase of 127.80% over 2022.

Staffing figures in the International Protection Office are set out in the below table:

The Deputy may also wish to know that I intend to substantially increase resourcing of the entire end-to-end International Protection process, including further additional staffing over the next 12 months, to improve processing times, significantly increase removals and enhance border security.

All aspects of the international protection modernisation programme will continue to be kept under review and improved on a continuous ongoing basis.