The number of deportation orders issued to asylum seekers has risen from 746 to 1,792 over the past year, an increase of 140 per cent, Ministers will be told this week.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee is due to provide a report to Government outlining the impact of recently introduced accelerated processing measures for international protection applicants.
She will also update Ministers on efforts to increase enforcement and address the issue of people arriving into the country without documentation. There have been 138 arrests so far this year for arriving without appropriate documentation while a “significant number” of these have been convicted.
The Government will be told that the number of enforced deportations using commercial travel is at a 10-year high.
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The number of deportation orders signed so far this year is 1,792, an increase of 140 per cent for the same period in 2023 when there were 746 orders signed. The number of enforced deportations has increased by 165 per cent for the same period, rising from 37 enforced deportations to 98 this year so far.
The number of voluntary returns has also risen, with 648 such returns so far this year in comparison with 175 in the same period in 2023, representing a 270 per cent increase.
Ms McEntee will also provide an update on accelerated processing times for certain international protection applicants, first introduced in late 2022.
The faster processing times are now applied to three groups: those who come from safe countries of origin, of which there are 15 such countries; those who have already received protection elsewhere in Europe; and the citizens of the countries that provide the highest number of new arrivals in the previous three months.
In relation to the latter group, extending fast processing to the two countries with the highest number of applications, currently Nigeria and Jordan, resulted in a 66 per cent reduction in applications from Nigeria, and a 67 per cent reduction from Jordanian applicants.
In relation to the safe countries list, Algeria and Botswana were added to that list on January 31st, 2024, resulting in a 78 per cent reduction on applications received from those countries.
An additional five countries were added to the safe countries list on July 3rd, 2024, and so far there has been a 14 per cent reduction in applications from this group. The 15 safe countries of origin are: Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Egypt, Georgia, India, Kosovo, Malawi, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Morocco, Serbia and South Africa.
There has also been a drop in the number of international protection applicants from South Africa and Bolivia after the introduction of new visa requirements.
Ministers are also due to be provided with an update on engagement between the Department of Justice, the UK Home Office, An Garda Síochána and the PSNI about protecting the Common Travel Area (CTA) from abuses.
Legislation has been introduced to allow the UK to be redesignated as a safe country for returns.
The border management unit, Garda National immigration Bureau and UK Border Force and Immigration Enforcement are engaging “via joint operations and intelligence-sharing” to respond to current trends of CTA travel and suspected areas of abuse”.
Work is happening under Operation Sonnet, a Garda operation which targets people attempting to abuse the CTA by illegally crossing the Irish Border from Northern Ireland. This involves the checking of vehicles.
According to separate information contained within a Department of Justice circular, the number of people who have applied for international protection in Ireland this year is now more than 16,000. As of September, there were 23,863 applications pending in the International Protection Office. The median processing time towards a determination is 79 weeks.
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