On 29 July 2024, the Department of Justice announced further expansion of measures to accelerate processing of international protection applications.
In April, the Department announced that international protection applicants from the country with the highest number of applications in Ireland over the previous three months will have their cases processed under an accelerated procedure. This has now been expanded to the top two countries which means applications from both Nigeria and Jordan will be prioritised this quarter. Under the accelerated process, decisions will be made within 90 days and certain appeals timelines are shortened. The countries with the highest application numbers will be assessed on a rolling basis every quarter.
As of 11 July, there were 1,037 international protection applications from Jordan and 3,000 applications from Nigeria.
Accelerated processing was introduced by the Department of Justice in November 2022 and now applies to the following cohorts:
- 15 safe countries of origin – Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Egypt, Georgia, India, Kosovo, Malawi, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Morocco, Serbia and South Africa.
- Applicants who have received protection elsewhere in Europe.
- Citizens of the top two countries which have the highest number of applicants in the previous quarter.
There have been 10,604 applications for international protection to the end of June 2024, an increase of 93.9% on the same period last year, with 13,277 in total last year. In 2024, there have been 1,717 applications processed under accelerated procedures, accounting for 16.2% of total applications processed this year.
