New approach to asylum applications will ‘speed up’ process, says McEntee

A new approach to processing asylum applications will “speed up” the system, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said.

It comes as the Minister announced an expansion of a prioritisation system that was first announced in April.

The International Protection Office (IPO) will prioritise cases from the top two countries of origin with the highest number of applicants in the previous three months.

There were 881 international protection applications from Jordan in the second quarter of the year, making it the country with the second-highest volume of applications.

According to the Department of Justice, the number of asylum applications from Jordan has increased significantly: in the first six months of 2023, there were 79 applications from the country.

Over the same period in 2024 this number rose to 1,037.

From Monday, applicants from Jordan will now be processed “on an accelerated basis”.

This comes after a measure announced in April which saw people from a country with…