My Department is committed to implementing our responsibilities under the White Paper to End Direct Provision and Establish a New International Protection Support Service, which was recently published by my colleague, Minister O'Gorman. There has been regular engagement between my officials and those of the Department of Children, Disability, Equality, Integration and Youth in relation to the development and implementation of the White Paper, and I have also met with Minister O'Gorman, in this regard.
I have established a Programme Board in my Department to oversee the implementation of the relevant recommendations of the Expert Advisory Group and the White Paper. This is supported by an Implementation Working Group comprising senior officials from the relevant areas of my department to support their implementation and to report to the Board on progress at regular intervals. The Programme Board will report directly to the Cabinet Committee on Social Affairs and Equality on progress in this regard, while my Department will also be represented on a Programme Board to be established and chaired by Minister O'Gorman, which will set performance indicators for the new model and monitor progress against those indicators.
My Department is committed to making further efficiencies in the international protection process. In this regard, the White Paper commits to implementing the key recommendations in the Advisory Group Report to reduce processing times of both first instance decisions and appeals to 6 months respectively.
Work is underway in my Department towards identifying mechanisms which will assist with working towards improved processing times. Additional ICT resources have been secured for 2021 and detailed work including an end-to-end review of processes to guide enhanced processing times is underway. When this first phase of work has been carried out it will enable a more detailed set of milestones to be put in place.
My Department is also committed to ensuring that additional resources designated for the International Protection Office (IPO) are deployed in the most efficient and effective way possible to increase the output of quality decisions and to the introduction, where appropriate, of new initiatives to further enhance processing times, including increased use of ICT to further streamline the application process and increased use of remote interviews and hearings.
A number of such initiatives have been introduced to date, including the relocation of the Ministerial Decisions Unit to the IPO to improve work processes, the designation of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal as a body authorised to hold remote hearings and the holding of virtual interviews with some international protection applicants living outside of Dublin by the IPO.
In relation to the current backlog of international protection cases, my Department intends, in the first instance, to prioritise processing of all cases using improved processes and the planned ICT investment in the system.
My Department will, by October 2022 at the latest, commence a review of progress made in reducing and improving processing times and based on the outcome of that review, decide by the end of 2022, whether additional measures are required in order to ensure that the new system can come into operation without the overhang of any significant number of legacy cases.
