Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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188. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons that have sought international protection/asylum in the State in each of the past ten years and to date in 2024; if a breakdown can be provided on the number who were successful or unsuccessful in their applications, and the number for whom a final determination has not yet been made on their application, in tabular form. [41860/24]

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. I have implemented measures to improve efficiencies and throughput while also 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 IPO now has 545 staff, an increase of 157% over 2022. In addition, there are currently 208 Panel Members contracted by the IPO, an increase of 124% over 2022 figures.

Budget 2025 has provided an additional €25m package for end-to-end investment in the immigration system which will enable approximately 400 further staff to be recruited for roles across this process.

This will support reaching key targets, including the IPO making 25,000 first instance decisions in 2025 compared to over 14,000 cases in 2024.

Please note that although the Deputy has asked for figures from 2014 onwards, statistics pre-2017 are not readily available in the manner sought, as data would have to be extracted from a number of legacy systems. With the introduction of the International Protection Act in 2016 and the creation of the International Protection Office, a new database allows for easier collation of data in more recent years therefore we have provided figures from 2017 onwards only.

The table below details the number of International Protection applications received from 2017 to 10 October 2024.

Of the cases with the International Protection Office 70.5% of cases are pending less than 1 year and 95.5% of cases are pending less than 2 years.

The table below details the number of determinations made since 2017. It is important to note that there is no correlation between year of application and the year a decision is issued.

*as of cob 10^th October - figures are correct at time of issue, however, all statistics may be subject to data cleansing.

The grant rate over this period was 40.72%