The number of International Protection (IP) applicants working in Ireland has “increased dramatically” in recent years, a study by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) finds.
Applicants who have been in Ireland for at least six months can work if they are granted a Labour Market Access permit. Prior to 2021, applicants were required to have lived in the State for nine months before they could seek employment.
“This resulting time lag was clearly evident in the data we explored, as the percentage of applicants who entered the labour market increased dramatically in the years after their first year of DEA (Daily Expenses Allowance) commencement,” the CSO said.
For example, 77 per cent of all new DEA beneficiaries from 2022 were working last year.
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The DEA is a weekly social welfare payment paid to IP applicants by the Department of Social Protection. The maximum weekly rate is €38.80 per adult and €29.80 per child. If an IP applicant is working, their income must be below a certain threshold for them to qualify for the DEA.
The CSO on Monday published an analysis of the demographics, economic activity and social welfare activity of IP applicants in the State from 2016 to last year.
A total of 17,250 applicants received the DEA, a social welfare benefit paid by the Department of Social Protection to IP applicants, last year.
In 2022, the number of new beneficiaries of the DEA exceeded 10,000 for the first time, at 11,750 people. This number dropped to 10,252 people in 2023 before increasing again to 17,250 people last year.
A “significant” number of IP applicants receive the DEA, but not all, the CSO noted.
In terms of a gender, some 83 per cent of male DEA beneficiaries since 2022 and 65 per cent of women worked in some capacity. In terms of age, the CSO found that people aged 25 to 44 had the highest rate of employment activity.
For the purposes of its analysis, the CSO excluded any employment of less than €500 per year or where the duration was less than two weeks in a 12-month period.
“Non-Irish nationals, which would include a number of International Protection applicants, accounted for 21 per cent of all employment in Ireland in the second quarter of this year,” the report noted.
More men than women benefited from the allowance in every year in question. The year with the highest proportion of women receiving the DEA was 2019, when it stood at 43 per cent of the total beneficiaries. In both 2022 and 2023, the figure was 34 per cent.
Almost half of all beneficiaries last year were aged between 25 and 44. The next largest group was the youngest cohort, with nearly a quarter of the total aged under 15.
There was a 42 per cent drop in the number of IP applications in the first seven months of this year compared to the same period last year, according to Department of Justice figures. The total number of applications dropped from 12,236 in July of last year to 7,207 last month.
The main countries of origin for applicants so far this year are Nigeria (1,083), Pakistan (945), Somalia (933), Afghanistan (767) and Georgia (462).
According to the CSO analysis, Nigeria, Jordan, Somalia and Pakistan had more than 1,000 new people benefiting from the DEA last year. Other countries that had more than 1,000 people in previous years were Algeria in 2022 and 2023, and Georgia in 2022.
The CSO also found there were “consistent considerable increases” in the number of beneficiaries from Nigeria, Bangladesh and Pakistan from 2022 to last year. In contrast, there were “considerable decreases” recorded for Georgia and Zimbabwe during the same period.
The number of IP applicants from Jordan and Palestine receiving the DEA increased substantially last year, growing to 2,766 and 877, respectively, the CSO said.
