Close to 700 deportation orders have been signed for this year, according to the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, who said this was significantly higher than the figure for this time last year.
Speaking in An Spidéal, Co Galway, this afternoon, she said so far close to 8,000 people had applied for asylum here this year.
“I think based on those figures we will most likely see above 20,000 people coming to Ireland for International Protection.
“It would be difficult to speculate anything beyond that, but certainly the numbers are much higher than we’ve seen in the past.”
She said the asylum process was being ramped up and an investment was being made in the International Protection Office (IPO) to make sure that the decision process was sped up, and that those who had a right to be here were given answers quickly.
“Importantly those who don’t (have the right) as well, that they’re given that negative decision quickly and they’re asked to leave,” she said.
She said gardaí are now working on a number of different operations to remove those who have been given the deportation orders.
She added that the Government wanted people to remove themselves “before it gets to that point.”
She said the number of voluntary returns had also increased this year in tandem.
She said more than 100 gardaí who had been working behind desks had now been freed up to work with the Garda National Immigration Bureau to carry out deportation operations.
“The reason that we’re seeing those higher numbers is because of the accelerated procedure that I’ve introduced so that people coming from safe countries in particular and those coming from the country with the highest number of applicants, which at the moment is Nigeria.
“Their applications have been processed much more quickly and so those deportation letters have been issued much more quickly.”
Minister McEntee said the Government could not allow a situation where a significant number of tents are appearing in any part of Dublin city centre or across the country.
She said An Garda Siochána and Dublin City Council had been working with the Department of Integration to move encampments on, but also to try to provide accommodation for those who are in tents.
“Nobody wants to see any person on the street in a tent,” she said, adding that the Government had managed to provide hundreds of people who had been in tents in the city centre with an alternative place to sleep in the last two or three weeks alone.
Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman was now looking at longer-term environments and accommodation, she said, to allow larger numbers of people in tents to be placed while they go through the International Protection System.
She said her role as Minister for Justice was to make sure they could go through that system as quickly as possible.
“That’s why I’ve more than doubled the staff that we have working there and that’s why I’ll continue to increase those numbers, that’s why the number of applications we’re processing has more than quadrupled in the last year,” she said, adding that those numbers would continue to increase.
Asked if the erecting of tents was illegal and if they would be moved away on a weekly basis, she again said the Government was working in a very challenging environment.
“We’re talking about people here. They’ve come to this country seeking solace, seeking international protection and nobody wants to see any person on the streets in tents.”
Asked if the location of accommodation for those seeking asylum was being kept under wraps until the local elections had concluded, she said there were clear plans by Minister O’Gorman to develop larger scale state accommodation in order to move away from a reliance on private accommodation for international protection applicants.
She said a number of sites had already been identified with plans progressing as quickly as possible, and that there was “no secret” around this plan.
She said tens of thousands of people had been accommodated by the Government, particularly through the Department of Integration in the last two years with many people still coming to Ireland from countries like Ukraine, with an increase in International Protection applicants happening at the same time.
She said that gardaí had acted swiftly in relation to investigating arson attacks linked to the provision of accommodation for asylum seekers.
