My Department is taking all necessary steps to manage the international protection process fairly, efficiently and effectively, as part of the broader Government response, while ensuring the integrity of Ireland's rules-based immigration system is maintained.
When applicants complete their initial application at International Protection Office (IPO) they are referred to the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS), in order to discuss accommodation requirements.
All applicants who are part of an accelerated procedure, including either those from Designated Safe Countries of Origin, or their country of origin constitutes a large share of applications, receive their interview notification on the day of their application. In addition, since 31st January 2024, applicants who have received international protection elsewhere in Europe and are being invited to an interview under Section 21 to consider their admissibility to the application process also receive their interview notification on the day of application.
All other applicants receive their interview notification by letter. The invitation letters are issued to the postal address submitted by the applicant or made known to the IPO. In such cases where an address has not been provided by the applicant since their date of application for international protection, contact is made via email, phone and where applicable via their legal representative to inform them of their interview date.
In rare cases where contact is made and the applicant does not provide an address, the IPO can arrange for applicants to pick up their letter of invitation in person. Invitations to interview are scheduled on the basis of oldest cases first.
From the date of the Government announcement (4 December 2023), up until 14 May:
- 9,494 applications for International Protection have been made.
- Of those, 1,144 have been invited to Interview.
- Of those 141 single men have not yet received an offer of accommodation from IPAS.
- Of those who have not yet received an offer of accommodation from IPAS, 20 applicants have been interviewed, as of end of April 2024. This figure is broken down per month in the table following.
|
Month (2024)
|
No. of interviews
|
|
February
|
7
|
|
March
|
5
|
|
April
|
8
|
|
Grand Total
|
20
|
