Social welfare payments to asylum seekers almost doubled in 2024, while additional needs payments to the same cohort tripled in the same period according to new figures released to Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín.
Expenditure on direct allowances to asylum seekers have increased fifteen-fold since 2015, the data showed, with a total of €168.2 million paid in the ten year period.
The Minister for Social Protection said that provisional figures showed that a total of €60.2 million was spent on the Daily Expenses Allowance in 2024 paid to asylum applicants – up from €34.4 million in 2023.
In addition, annual expenditure for Additional Needs Payments to asylum applicants who were in receipt of Daily Expense Allowance rose to €4.6 million in 2024, up from €1.8 million in 2023.
Spending on social protection for migrants seeking asylum has rocketed in the past ten years: the annual expenditure for weekly allowances has climbed from €3.9 million in 2015 to €60.2 million in 2024 – a fifteen-fold increase in that period.
Peadar Tóibín said that “the cost of the social welfare payments is just one of the elements of the now over billion euros being spent by this state on the IPAS system. Last year saw a massive 75% increase in the cost to the state. A €25.8m jump in the cost is enormous.”
A number of clear trends have appeared in the IPAS system in the last 3 years. Firstly the failure rate of applicants has gone from less than 25% between 2019 and 2023 to 65% last year to 80% so far this year. That’s a massive jump. It means that the majority of people in the IPAS are not fleeing war and violence.
“Also last year 90% of people who applied for asylum, applied at the International Protection Office in Dublin. They did not apply at the airports or the ports. The vast majority of these people have from the Britain via the north of Ireland. Britain is a safe country,” he added.
“In addition, the vast majority of people who fail the asylum process and received deportation orders are not removed from the country and the government doesn’t know if they have left or not.,” the Aontú leader said.
“All this means that the government’s system is in chaos. The state is paying tens of millions of euro of social welfare to thousands of people who are not fleeing war and violence. The government needs to significantly speed up the asylum process. It should not take any longer than 6 weeks. They need to remove all those who have failed to their home countries and the message needs to be sent out loud and clear internationally, do not apply for asylum in Ireland unless you are for real.”
Deputy Tóibín asked the Minister for Social Protection, Dara Calleary, to provide the total cost for each of the past ten years for the weekly social welfare payment given to international protection applicants, and the total cost of the additional needs payment claimed by international protection applicants for each of the past ten years.
In response, the Minister said his Department administers the Daily Expenses Allowance (previously called the Direct Provision Allowance) on behalf of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.
Tabular Statement
Table 1- Annual expenditure for Direct Provision Allowance and Daily Expenses Allowance from 2015-2024
Year Expenditure
2015 €3.9 million
2016 €3.8 million
2017 €4.9 million
2018 €6.4 million
2019 €11.2 million
2020 €13.0 million
2021 €11.1 million
2022 €19.3 million
2023 €34.4 million
2024 (Provisional) €60.2 million
Table 2- Annual Expenditure for Additional Needs Payments to International Protection applicants in receipt of Daily Expense Allowance from 2022-2024
Year Expenditure
2022 €1.2 million
2023 €1.8 million
2024 €4.6 million
The Minister said that the allowance is paid to asylum seekers who live in or are on a waiting list to move into accommodation provided by the International Protection Accommodation Services.
The Daily Expenses Allowance was introduced in 2018, as a replacement for the Direct Provision Allowance, he said, adding that the current weekly rates of payment are €38.80 per adult and €29.80 per child.
In December 2023 an increased rate of €113.80 per week for an adult was introduced where a person is unaccommodated and is on a waiting list for accommodation with the International Protection Accommodation Services.
“Under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, my department may make Additional Needs Payments to help meet essential expenses that a person cannot pay from their weekly income or from other personal and household resources. Entitlement only arises where a person can demonstrate that the expenditure is essential and that they have no means of funding the expenditure themselves,” the Minister added.
“The statistical reporting for Additional Needs Payments was revised in 2022 and 2023, to extract more complete information, including identification of such payments to International Protection applicants. Table 2 shows the annual expenditure for Additional Needs Payments to International Protection applicants in receipt of daily expenses allowance from 2022-2024. Figures specifically relating to payments to International Protection applicants for previous years are not available.”
Separately, a letter from an Department of Justice official, released under freedom of information, said that ‘chronic backlogs in dealing with applications for asylum were so long that it could encourage people to claim asylum in Ireland because the process was known to be so slow’.
‘In a pre-budget letter to the Department of Public Expenditure, the department said during 2024 just 1,200 decisions were being made each month while 1,800 new applications were being made,’ the Irish Examiner reported.