Asylum Seekers

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022

Tuesday, 26 July 2022

Questions (1539)

Mattie McGrath

Question:

1539. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Justice the number of non-Ukrainians that have arrived in the State seeking asylum since January 2022; the nationality of all those seeking asylum in Ireland since January 2022; their mode of transport; the last country from which they travelled directly to enter the State; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40135/22]

Written answers

Minister for Justice

The overall objective of my Department is to have recommendations made on international protection applications as soon as possible. This ensures that those who are found to be in need of protection from the State can receive it quickly and begin rebuilding their lives here with a sense of safety and security.

The Deputy may be aware that in recent months, the number of people claiming international protection has increased significantly, with 6,494 applications made so far this year to the end of June 2022. This is a 191% increase on the same period in 2019, the last year in which application numbers were not impacted by COVID-19. Of this number, a total of 300 applications were from Ukrainian nationals.

The information requested by the Deputy in relation to the breakdown of the nationality of applicants is provided in the table attached to this response. Unfortunately, my Department is unable to provide details on how applicants arrived in Ireland and from which destination, as statistics are not maintained in this manner by the International Protection Office.

I want to assure the Deputy that my Department continues to work to improve the international protection process and to reduce processing times, in line with the recommendations made by the Expert Advisory Group, led by Dr. Catherine Day, 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, as outlined, will present a significant challenge in achieving this.

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 multidisciplinary 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.

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 almost 56%, when compared with the same period pre-Covid in 2019.

My Department will, by October 2022 at the latest, commence a review of progress made in reducing and improving processing times.

Applications for international protection January to June 2022

Nationality	Total
Georgia	1181
Somalia	938
Algeria	698
Zimbabwe	572
Nigeria	493
Afghanistan	349
Ukraine	300
South Africa	235
Botswana	184
Egypt	140
Pakistan	102
Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The	95
Albania	84
El Salvador	82
Bangladesh	72
Morocco	66
Syrian Arab Republic	56
Malawi	54
Sudan	51
Sierra Leone	47
Iraq	45
Brazil	44
Ethiopia	43
Iran (Islamic Republic Of)	27
Russian Federation	26
Turkey	23
Ghana	22
Swaziland	22
Palestinian Territory, Occupied	21
Bolivia	20
India	20
Malaysia	20
Nicaragua	19
Uganda	19
Angola	18
Jordan	18
Cameroon	17
Eritrea	17
Kenya	17
Lebanon	15
Mauritius	12
Tunisia	12
Venezuela	12
Belarus	11
Nepal	11
Viet Nam	11
Yemen	11
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya	9
Saudi Arabia	9
Togo	9
Kuwait	8
Guatemala	7
United States Of America	6
Others*	94
Total	6494

*Where the number of applications for individual countries is low (less than 6), a breakdown is not provided. This is for reasons of confidentiality, as provided for under section 26 of the International Protection Act 2015.