The Covid-19 pandemic "severely impacted" efforts to improve processing times for asylum applications, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
The White Paper for ending Ireland’s direct provision system committed to reducing decision times down to nine months, and then to cut it further to no longer than six months by 2024.
Speaking at a meeting of the Oireachtas Justice Committee on Thursday, Oonagh Buckley, deputy secretary general of the Department of Justice, said work is "well under way" to bring the recommendations from the White Paper into effect.
However, she said the ability to improve processing times was negatively affected by Covid-19, largely due its paper-based system.
The recommendation in the White Paper said the department should deal with 3,500 applications per year, and Ms Buckley said they were getting “quite close” to that level of output towards the end of 2019.
However, as a result of the pandemic, only 2,141 applications were processed in 2020, and as of October 2021, about 1,900 had been processed this year.
The current average case processing time is 23 months, with prioritised applications, such as those from Afghanistan, taking 14 months.
“The output of decisions has been reduced considerably in the last year and a half. Attendance at the office has been strictly limited, in line with public health guidance, and susbtsantive protection interviews were suspended for the periods under Level 5 restrictions,” Ms Buckley said.
Applications for international protection continued throughout the pandemic, though at a very low level.
“However, with the opening up of international travel again, the numbers are starting to rise quite steeply,” she added.
Progress
David Delaney, chief international protection officer, said progress had been made in reducing waiting times prior to the pandemic.
In 2019, the average waiting time was down to 17 months, he said, which dropped further to 14 months in the first quarter of 2020.
Mr Delaney said “significant work” has been put in place to tackle the backlog, with 390 cases being cleared last week and up to 80 interviews being conducted online a week.
Ms Buckley said she believes the measures the department will take will have a “demonstrably positive impact” on waiting times for applications.
Ms Buckley said additional resources have been provided to the International Protection Office for next year, and there has also been resources allocated for the ICT investment required to move to a paperless system.
The department will commence a review by October of next year to evaluate the measures put in place to reduce waiting times.
Ms Buckley also said there are more than 1,000 people with permission to remain living in direct provision due to the difficulties in getting housing.
