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Cabinet updated on increased resourcing for international protection system
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The Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has today updated her Cabinet colleagues on plans to significantly increase resources for the entire end-to-end international protection process. This will include approximately 400 additional staff over the next 12 months, to maintain processing times, significantly increase removals and enhance border security.
These resources are being provided in response to rising numbers of international protection applications to date in 2024 and the likelihood that total applications for the year are now expected to amount to 20-25,000.
Earlier investment to improve the international protection process has proved effective with a doubling of staff resulting in a trebling of the number of decisions in the International Protection Office.
Strategic policy and operational approaches to speed up application from safe countries and the country with the highest number of applications are also being taken and are having an impact. Since the introduction of accelerated processing by the Minister for Justice in November 2022, the number of applications from the designated countries have halved.