Pa Daly
Question:755. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Justice the number of applicants for international protection that were dealt with under the single application procedure to date in 2022. [37999/22]
View answerTuesday, 12 July 2022
Questions (755)
Written answers
My Department's overall objective is to have decisions made on applications from people seeking international protection as quickly as possible. This ensures that those who are found to be in need of protection in Ireland can receive it quickly and begin rebuilding their lives here with a sense of safety and security.
I want to assure the Deputy that my Department continues to innovate to improve our processes and to reduce processing times, in line with the recommendations made by the Catherine Day Expert Advisory Group, and the commitments in the Government's White Paper published by my colleague, Minister Roderic O’Gorman. However, the substantially higher number of applications currently being received will present a significant challenge in achieving this.
Since the introduction of new efficiency measures, in the first six months of this year we have been able to increase the number of first instance recommendations and permission to remain decisions being made by the IPO by 56% when compared with the same period pre-Covid in 2019.
The total number of first instance recommendations made by the IPO under the single application procedure for the first six months of 2022 was 2,656, compared with 3,408 for all of 2019.
My Department is taking all possible steps to ensure we can process applications as quickly as possible. An end-to-end review of relevant international protection processes by a multi-disciplinary team from my Department has been completed and published. New measures and procedures will continue to be put in place to improve efficiencies across all aspects of the protection process. My Department will, by October 2022 at the latest, commence a review of progress made in reducing and improving processing times.