Figures to the end of October 2022, show that the number of migrants from Georgia who are claiming to be asylum seekers in Ireland has increased ten-fold in a year.
A report from the International Protection Office shows that applicants from Georgia increased from 215 in the same period in 2021 to 2,300 in the ten months to end of October 2022.
Georgia is generally described as a safe country and is not war-torn. The IPO calculates that 20% of all those who claimed asylum in Ireland so far this year are from Georgia
Similarly, the number of people coming from Algeria has increased dramatically from less than 100 in the 2021 period to 1,318 in the first ten months of 2022.
That’s increase of more than 1000% in Algerians claiming asylum for the period compared to last year.
The second highest number of people claiming asylum is from Somalia – and their numbers have also rocketed from 185 to 1,409 in the period.
Those coming from Nigeria, one of the richest countries in Africa, have also doubled.
The overall number of people claiming to be refugees, excluding those from Ukraine who have special status, has soared in the past year.
In 2021 the total for the first ten months of the year was 1,807. The comparative figure for 2022 has surged to 11,142 new arrivals claiming asylum.
“The total above represents a 516.6% increase on the figure for the same period in 2021,” the IPO said. “When relocation applications are excluded, the figure represent a 533.4% increase on the same period in 2021.”
Last year, Minister Roderic O’Gorman tweeted out in Albanian, Arabic, Somali, Urdu and Georgian that a new system would be in place for anyone who came to Ireland and claimed to be a refugee.
“Under this new system, people who are applying for protection will be helped to integrate into Ireland from day one, with health, housing, education, and employment supports at the core of the system,” the paper O’Gorman tweeted said.
Applicants would have told that own-door housing would be available after just 4 months.