A ministerial briefing published last month revealed that “chartering flights” is being considered as an option when it comes to resettling refugees in Ireland as part of the Irish Refugee Protection Programme (IRPP).
The briefing document, published by the Department of Integration at the end of March, states that the IRPP carried out “selection missions” in 2021 and 2022 to Jordan and Lebanon and that “work is ongoing to resettle the refugees selected as part of those missions”.
According to the briefing, arrivals from the Lebanon mission were prioritised in the latter half of last year, while it is intended to complete the remaining arrivals (approximately 40 people) from the Jordan mission in the first half of this year.
The document notes that there are “challenges” in arranging travel for those selected as part of the IRPP, which is “considering options in relation to chartering flights”.
Under the IRPP travel issues section containing the information, selection missions to Turkey and Bangladesh that took place last year are also discussed:
“A selection mission took place in June 2024 for the first time in Türkiye with Afghans displaced in Türkiye, and a mission took place in December 2024 to Bangladesh to select displaced Rohingya for resettlement,” it reads.
The IRPP was established by the Government in 2015 in response to the migration crisis faced by southern and central Europe and has since seen the arrival of over 4,000 refugees under various resettlement strands.
December 2019 saw the implementation of IRPP II, part of which was a commitment to resettle mainly Syrian refugees resident in Jordan and Lebanon. This phase planned for 650 UNHCR resettlements in 2020, 700 in 2021, 750 in 2022 and 800 in 2023.
There were “significant challenges” in meeting those targets as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Afghanistan crisis of 2021 and the Ukraine crisis in 2022, according to the Department.
However, it adds that “normal resettlement processes for the IRPP have now resumed”.
The ministerial briefing document also addresses the matter of unaccommodated international protection applicants, saying that despite “intensive efforts to source accommodation over the last 2 years, and bringing over 20,000 new beds into use, the Department has been unable to offer accommodation to nearly 3,200 male applicants” since the end of 2023.
“Unaccommodated international protection applicants have been the subject of a recent High Court judgement, which ruled that the State was failing in its duty to provide material reception conditions to applicants,” it reads, adding that this ruling is “currently under appeal”.