Press release
Minister McEntee announces expansion of accelerated processing of International Protection applications
Published on
Last updated on
Published on
Last updated on
The Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee T.D. has today (Monday) announced that the International Protection Office (IPO) will prioritise cases from the top 2 countries of origin with the highest number of applicants in the previous three months.
There were 881 international protection applications from Jordan in Q2 2024 making it the country with the second highest volume of applications. Thus in accordance with the expansion of the highest volume category, applicants from this country will now be processed on an accelerated basis.
This builds on accelerated processing introduced in April 2024 which saw citizens of the country with the highest number of applicants in the previous quarter (Nigeria) being prioritised and accelerated.
Expanding this category to the country with the second highest number of applications will further speed up international protection application processing and enable the IPO to transition to meet the faster processing requirements of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum.
Minister McEntee said:
“In April I extended accelerated processing measures to whatever country has the highest number of applicants in the previous 3-month period. This country was Nigeria, which has seen a 53% drop in applications since being brought to the accelerated process.
“By expanding this to include the country with the second highest number of applicants, I am further speeding up international protection processing. This country is currently Jordan and so applicants from this country will now be subject to the accelerated process.
“Accelerated processing allows for faster decisions so, if a person is entitled to protection, they can get on with re-building their lives here in Ireland, and those who do not qualify can return to their own country in a timely manner.
“I will continue to make regular assessments on which applicants will be subject to the accelerated process. Migration patterns can shift and change, and we must remain flexible and adaptive to maintain the integrity and efficiency of our immigration system.”
Accelerated processing was introduced by Minister McEntee in November 2022 and now applies to the following cohorts:
• 15 safe countries of origin - Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Egypt, Georgia, India, Kosovo, Malawi, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Morocco, Serbia and South Africa.
• Applicants who have received protection elsewhere in Europe.
• Citizens of the countries which provides the most number of applicants in the previous quarter.
For safe countries, there has been a drop of up to 70% in applications from the already designated safe countries following the introduction of accelerated procedures.
The list of Safe Countries is kept under review having regard to the profile of applications being received.
ENDS..//
Notes for Editors
The following table gives a breakdown of the Top 5 Nationalities for first 6 months of 2024.
Top 5 IP application nationalities up to the end of June 2024
Top 5 Nationalities 2024*
| Nigeria | 2,999 |
| Jordan | 1,037 |
| Pakistan | 769 |
| Somalia | 664 |
| Bangladesh | 649 |
| Other | 4,482 |
| Total | 10,600 |
The following table gives a breakdown of international protection applications from Jordan from 2020 to end of June 2024.
| Year | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
| Jordan | 27 | 79 | 1037 |
Today’s announcement builds on other recent initiatives to improve the international protection system in Ireland.
Additional information on actions taken by the Department of Justice in the area of immigration:
1. Suspended visa free travel to Ireland for refugees who are holders of a Convention Travel Document issued by another State, added countries to the visa required list, and will be taking more measures to clamp down on visa free travel form countries with significant number of International Protection applicants
2. Provided specific funding to An Garda Síochána for a programme to assign Garda Airline Liaison Officers to European Transport Hubs to prevent irregular migration.
3. Assigned additional resources in Dublin Airport to carry out ‘doorstop’ operation on flights that pose risks of irregular migration. Over 3, 700 ‘doorstop’ operations were carried out in the first half of 2024.
4. An Garda Síochána have arrested 115 people in the first half of 2024 for arriving without appropriate documentation and a significant number have been convicted.
5. Last year, saw a reduction of one third in the number of persons arriving at Dublin Airport without the correct documentation. The numbers arriving without the correct documentation for 2024 are on-course to approximately be 50% of that in 2022.
6. The Border Management Unit continues to provide training and 24-hour advice to Airlines on how to identify and deal with immigration abuse.
7. There has been a significant investment in speeding up processing of International Protection applications; this includes doubling the staff assigned to the International Protection Office and the opening of a new processing location at Citywest in April of this year.
8. This investment has led to the number of decisions issuing increasing threefold and will increase further this year.
9. The number of deportation orders signed up to 25 July 2024 (1174) has increased by 90% for the same period in 2023 (617 up to 28 July 2023)
10. Enforced deportations are up 123% and voluntary returns are up 153% on the same period last year; both more than doubled.
11. Charter flights will be required to support the removal process, commencing later this year; a procurement process for this is well advanced.
12. The process to release up to 100 more Gardaí to support immigration enforcement activities is advancing and will be substantially completed within the next 12 months. Additional administrative immigration work at Dublin Airport has been transferred to the Border Management Unit and 80% of immigration registration duties nationwide have transferred to the Department of Justice from An Garda Síochána.
13. Engagement between the Department of Justice, the UK Home Office, An Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland around protecting the Common Travel Area (CTA) from abuses is ongoing.
14. Border Management Unit (BMU), Garda National immigration Bureau (GNIB) and colleagues in the UK Border Force and Immigration Enforcement, engage via joint operations and intelligence-sharing to respond to current trends of CTA travel and suspected areas of abuse.
15. Immigration investigations and enforcement action are being undertaken on a daily basis by the GNIB who work closely with their counterparts in UK Border Force and Immigration Enforcement in Joint operations to detect and tackle abuses of the CTA. Operation Sonnet is a Garda operation targeting abuse of the CTA and has been ongoing for some time. It targets people attempting to abuse the CTA by illegally crossing the Irish border from Northern Ireland.
16. Last week, the Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation Act was signed into law. This Act: brings forward provisions in response to a High Court judgment to allow for the designation of safe third countries in relation to inadmissible applications; and allows for increased penalties for carriers who are found to not have conducted appropriate checks from €3,000 to €5,000.
17. Ireland is responding to changing patterns of migration in recent years, which only reinforces the need for the EU Asylum and Migration Pact to allow us work with our European partners and to benefit from funding to help us deal with this issue. Without it, Ireland would be isolated and numbers of people coming here would certainly increase.