The Chairperson of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal, Ms Hilkka Becker, has presented the Tribunal’s Annual Report to the Minister for Justice, Ms Helen McEntee TD., and the report has been laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. In her foreword to the Annual Report, Ms Becker stated:
“It is with great pleasure and pride that I present this Annual Report to the Minister for Justice, Ms Helen McEntee TD.
Throughout 2023 the International Protection Appeals Tribunal has continued to make a significant contribution to the international protection system here in Ireland, making the system more efficient and ensuring its consistency with fairness and natural justice, and performing the judicial scrutiny function provided for in Article 39 of Directive 2005/85.
Modernisation measures, most recently the first fully digital international protection appeal files, introduced through the initiatives of the Tribunal administration teams led by Registrars, Pat Murray, who left the Tribunal in March 2023, and, since then, George Sinclair, have enabled the Tribunal to further increase its accessibility and productivity.
Resulting from a substantial increase in applications for international protection since 2022 the Tribunal has seen a further significant increase in appeals coming to it in 2023, rising by over 300% from 1,180 to 4,775. I am pleased to say that the Tribunal succeeded in maintaining its median processing time of under six months in 2023. However, while resources in place for the year enabled the Tribunal to increase its output and conclude just over 1,700 appeals, the year ended with a pending caseload of 3,908 appeals.
I am appreciative of the efforts made by the Department of Justice to bring the Tribunal administration staff numbers and the number of Tribunal Members to a proportionate equivalent to the staff numbers and decision-makers in the International Protection Office. This, along with the Tribunal’s own efforts to further increase efficiencies, is essential so that the Tribunal may be in a position to meet the demand arising from the further increase of appeals foreseen in 2024, while striving to maintain its standard of high-quality decision-making in line with national and EU law requirements.
With thanks to all my colleagues within the Tribunal, colleagues in the Department of Justice, the International Protection Office, the state agency sector and in the legal profession for their collaboration and support throughout the year, I look forward to a busy year ahead.”
You can view the 2023 Annual Report here.