Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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752. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of non-national individuals who have entered the State who have a previous criminal conviction. [63093/25]

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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753. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the steps he takes to identify individuals entering the State to ensure a thorough background check is being carried out. [63094/25]

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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754. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the process which is carried out to confirm the identity of an individual who enters the State without identification. [63095/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 752, 753 and 754 together.

Implementing effective border security arrangements is a priority for me as Minister. The Programme for Government commits to developing a border security strategy to deliver stronger border security, ensuring technology supports border screening and to reviewing the potential of extending pre-clearance mechanisms, such as electronic travel authorisation, for travel from designated third countries. This work is underway.

I can advise the Deputy that the establishment of a person’s identity is an important feature of the Irish immigration process.

At ports of entry, Immigration officials conduct passport checks, and run operations as required, to ensure passengers arriving in the State are properly documented in accordance with the Immigration Act 2004.

When a non-EEA national presents at border control, an Immigration Officer must determine whether that person should be granted leave to land and gain entry to the State. Section 4(3) of the Immigration Act 2004 sets out the full range of grounds on which a person may be refused.

In performing their duties, an Officer is required to consider all of the circumstances of the individual at the time of entry; this will include if the person has an alert on the Schengen Information System (SIS) II. For security reasons and to protect the integrity of the immigration system, neither I nor my Department can comment on specific operational procedures of the Border Management Unit (BMU) or the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB), including on the operation of SIS II.

The SIS II, allows for an easy exchange of information between national border control authorities, customs and police authorities on people who may have been involved in a serious crime. It also contains alerts on missing persons, in particular children, as well as information on certain property, such as banknotes, cars, vans, firearms and identity documents that may have been stolen, misappropriated or lost.

My Department does not record the number of people granted leave to land and who have a criminal conviction.

Additionally, I can advise the Deputy the EU Migration and Asylum Pact introduces mandatory processing times for International Protection applications. Ireland along with other Member States will be required to process applications in 3 months for an accelerated decision. This will apply to, amongst others, people who have misled authorities such as by destroying identity documents.

The General Scheme of a new International Protection Bill to give effect to the measures of the Pact was approved by Government on 29 April 2025. The drafting of the Bill is well advanced. It is expected that the Bill will be published by the end of the year. Enactment of the Bill and commencement of the Act is required by 11 June 2026.

In relation to screening under the Pact, Ireland is not participating in the 2024 Screening Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1356), which is a Schengen measure, but the International Protection Bill will seek to appropriately align with that Regulation. Applicants for international protection will be required to undergo screening at a screening centre following their arrival in the State. One of the key purposes of screening is to verify the identity of an international protection applicant and to assess whether an applicant might pose a threat to internal security. This will be done by the examination of documentation, the taking of biometric data, and checks against relevant databases.

My Department and An Garda Síochána are also working closely with airlines on a range of measures to ensure that passengers have the required documentation when boarding. This includes delivering in-person training to relevant airline ground-handling staff on immigration requirements and false travel documentation. BMU officials are available 24/7 to assist airlines with any immigration queries.

BMU and An Garda Síochána have an ongoing intelligence-led programme of operations at airplanes to detect passengers who destroyed documents inflight and to identify the point of embarkation of undocumented passengers. Last year in 2024, the BMU have carried out over 7,300 doorstep operations at Dublin Airport. Up to the end of October of this year, 5125 doorstep operations have been conducted by the BMU.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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755. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of international protection applicants who have not been offered accommodation on arrival in each month to date in 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [63126/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland is currently accommodating almost 33,000 people seeking international protection in nearly 320 International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) centres around the country.

Due to severe shortages of accommodation over recent years, from December 2023, the State was unable to offer accommodation to all people seeking international protection.

My Department manages a limited supply of accommodation, prioritising people with families or who have specific health needs or other vulnerabilities. This means that single male applicants are most affected by accommodation pressures.

From January to October 2025, the following numbers of single male applicants were not offered accommodation on arrival.

Most of these applicants whose case remains active have subsequently been made an offer of accommodation, as outlined below.

While most unaccommodated people are not rough-sleeping, IPAS has arrangements in place with a range of NGO partners to provide drop-in day services for unaccommodated people who are. This means people can access facilities including hot showers, meals and laundry services.

IPAS can also makes offers of accommodation to any applicant who is rough sleeping, identified through outreach that is organised 7 days a week through a homeless NGO partner organisation.

While the demand for IPAS accommodation remains high, the reduced rate of new applications has meant that since March 2025, IPAS has been able to review the cases of people who were awaiting an offer of accommodation and make offers to those who have been waiting longest.

As part of the review process, we are also identifying people who no longer require accommodation. They are removed from the list of people waiting for an offer, speeding up the process for people on the list who still need accommodation.

This review has reduced the number of unaccommodated people from over 3,500 in March 2025, to 613 in October 2025.

This means that eligible people who applied for international protection during 2023 and 2024 and the earlier part of 2025 have now all received an offer of accommodation.

Depending on availability of spaces and numbers of new applicants, we will continue to make offers of accommodation to more people over the coming weeks and months.

Updated information on unaccommodated international protection applicants is published online at Gov.ie.

www.gov.ie/en/department-of-justice-home-affairs-and-migration/publications/statistics-on-international-protection-applicants-not-offered-accommodation/?referrer=.

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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756. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of people who have been refused temporary protection in each month to date in 2025. [63127/25]

Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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757. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of people from Ukraine who have applied for international protection to date in 2025. [63128/25]

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 756 and 757 together.

Under Article 2, the Temporary Protection Directive applies to the following groups of people who have had to flee Ukraine due to the invasion by Russia :

a) Ukrainian nationals who were residing in Ukraine before 24 February 2022;

b) Nationals of a third country (other than Ukraine) or a stateless person who would have benefited from international protection (for example: Refugee status) or an equivalent national protection status in Ukraine and were residing there before 24 February 2022;

c) Family members of persons covered by a) and b), where their family already existed in Ukraine, prior to 24 February.

The table below shows the number of people who were granted or refused temporary protection by my Department for each month of 2025 and up to 9 November. It does not include those who voluntarily withdrew from temporary protection at a later date.

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