Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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33. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if she will outline her plans for improving the processing times for those seeking international protection in the State; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26450/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department takes all necessary steps to manage the international protection process efficiently and effectively, while ensuring the integrity of those processes is maintained at all times.

I am ramping up investment at every level of the international protection system, including in the International Protection Office (IPO). In recent years, the IPO has expanded its processing capacity, doubled its budget, and invested in process reform and digitisation.

One of the priority areas of focus has been to recruit both civil servants and panel members, to increase case processing. The International Protection Office now has 423 staff, an increase of 100% since 2022.

This investment has led to the number of decisions issuing increasing threefold and is set to increase further this year. It has also led to a significant improvement in processing times, with all first-instance decisions reducing from 18 months in 2022 down to 13 months in 2023. The median processing time for appeals was 5.5 months in 2023 down from 13.5 months at the start of 2022.

Recent strategic policy and operational approaches to speed up applications from safe countries and the country with the highest number of applications are also proving effective. Applications from designated safe countries have dropped by 50% in the year since these procedures were introduced in November 2022.

This year, asylum applications in Ireland have increased by 99.5% with 9,952 applications to 14th June 2024, compared to 4,994 applications in the same period in 2023.

To ensure the gains made through the recent reform efforts are not compromised by a significant increase in applications I intend to further increase resourcing of the entire end-to-end international protection process. This will include further additional staffing, to maintain processing times, significantly increase removals and enhance border security.