There has been noted a “significant” increase in the number of people who sought asylum in Ireland, returning to pre-pandemic levels in the recent months, the Minister for Equality Roderic O’Gorman has pointed out.
According to him, while the number of asylum seekers in Ireland marked a decrease last year, mainly due to travel restrictions imposed by countries in order to halt the further spread of the virus, the number of applications in November was the highest since 2015, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Based on the report of the Irish Times, last month, a total of 333 people filed an application for international protection in the State, up from 44 compared to 2020 figures.
The same shows just 60 people per month sought asylum in 2020. From July to this year, the average is 241 per month, returning towards the pre-pandemic average of a total of 320 per month.
“It’s a big increase on 2020, which was significantly down, but even in terms of 2019, which was a significant year, there’s a significant increase,” O’Gorman pointed out.
He said that as a result of the greater openness on international travel and transport, it seems more people can access the State and seek asylum.
According to O’Gorman, such numbers create a challenge in terms of accommodation.
“We’re hoping in January to undertake a significant new tendering process to provide better accommodation in terms of allowing us to move away from the types of emergency reception centres that have been used since 2019, but also allow for the accommodation of additional people seeking international protection,” he pointed out, stressing that the focus will be on obtaining “own door or own room accommodation” for international protection applicants.
The Irish Legal News previously announced that people seeking international protection and waiting for over two years to have their filed application processed would be granted permission to remain in Ireland under the new scheme.
The same report stressed that, according to Justice Minister Helen McEntee, Irish Ministers approved such a scheme in order to help undocumented migrants and their families who are remaining in the country.
Earlier this month, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTE) reported that since August, the Irish government granted 510 Afghans with visas or visa waivers to travel to Ireland following Ireland’s Refugee Protection Programme.
The same showed that the government launched five visas as well as 505 visa waivers, with a total of 394 people arriving as part of the scheme.
Recently, the European statistics provider Eurostat stressed that the number of people applying for international protection in European countries is increasing.
Based on the figures provided by Eurostat, the number of people who filed an application for international protection for the first time increased by 21 per cent during September, accounting for 60 800 applications filed for asylum in the EU Member States.
Such figures mean that over 10,600 more first-time applications for international protection were filed in September compared to the previous month when 50,200 applications were filed.
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