There has been a sharp drop-off in the number of people who have come from Palestine to Ireland to claim asylum this year.
Last year, there were 957 international protection applications by Palestinian people.
At around 80 applications a month, it marked a sharp increase in the numbers of Palestinians seeking asylum in Ireland in the first year since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.
But in the first six months of this year, the number of applications from Palestinians has reached only 65 – or an average of almost 11 applications a month.
RM Block
The figures are included in new immigration statistics which Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan will present to a Cabinet committee on immigration on Monday.
Mr O’Callaghan will tell colleagues that there has been a 43 per cent drop in the number of international protection applications in the first six months of 2025 compared to the first six months of 2024.
Of the 10 nationalities making up the highest number of international protection applicants in 2025, four were from countries designated as safe countries of origin.
Since November 2022, applications from those coming from so-called “safe countries” have been accelerated. “Safe” countries in the top 10 includedGeorgia and Algeria*.
There have been 926 applications from Nigeria so far in 2025, the highest number from any one country.
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Mr O’Callaghan will tell colleagues that a “significant increase” in investment into the International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS), digitisation and process re-engineering has “facilitated a major increase in processing capacity.”
Deportations have also increased so far this year. In 2024, there were a total of 156 deportations. This included 22 people who were confirmed to have left the State without needing to be escorted by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) and 134 “forced” deportations.
So far in 2025 there have been 198 deportations. This includes 28 cases of people leaving without a GNIB escort, 64 forced deportations and an additional 106 deportations by charter flight.
As of last Monday, there were 33,822 pending IPAS applications at various points of the process.
About 72 per cent of all international protection applicants appeal their first instance refusal decision.
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The IPAS tribunal system, which considers appeals, has the capacity to consider 4,750 such appeals this year. But this is far below the 17,000 appeals that the Department of Justice expects to receive in 2025. The number of appeals completed in the first six months of this year stands at 2,455.
According to the Department of Justice, an ongoing recruitment campaign is under way to increase the number of tribunal staff and the number of cases they can consider each year. It is planning to increase its full-time tribunal staff members from six to 30 and its part-time staff from 118 to 160, as well as trying to hire more legal support staff.
*This story was amended on July 14th to reflect Nigeria and Jordan are not designated as safe countries; instead, applicants from these two countries are taken through an accelerated process due to the volume of applications from those countries.
