International Protection Applicants – What CSO data tells us

International Protection is granted by a government to someone who has left another country to escape being harmed. Applicants in Ireland can be granted residency under International Protection if they arrived to escape persecution in their own country or if they cannot return to their country because of a well-founded fear for their safety.

We looked at the beneficiaries of the Daily Expense Allowance (DEA), a social welfare benefit only available to International Protection applicants who live in, or are waiting to move into, accommodation provided by the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS).

This new methodology gave us insight on three main areas, Demographics, Economic Activity, and Social Welfare Activity. Our analysis looked at beneficiaries of the DEA for the years 2016 to 2024. Although this is a significant subset of all applicants of International Protection, it should be noted that not all International Protection applicants are beneficiaries of the allowance.

We know that the number of applicants has been generally increasing in recent years. 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 in 2024.

We reviewed the age and sex of beneficiaries, and from our analysis found the percentage share of women benefiting from the DEA was lower than men in every year that we looked at. The year with the highest proportion of women was 2019, when it stood at 43% of the total beneficiaries. In both 2022 and 2023, this figure was 34%.

In 2024, almost half of all beneficiaries were aged between 25 and 44 years. The next largest group was the youngest cohort, with nearly a quarter of the total aged under 15 years.

When considering the countries represented in our analysis, Nigeria, Jordan, Somalia, and Pakistan had more than 1,000 new people benefiting from the DEA in 2024. Other countries that had over 1,000 people in previous years were Algeria in both 2022 and 2023, and Georgia in 2022. 

We found there were consistent considerable increases in the number of beneficiaries from Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Pakistan in the periods of 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024.  In contrast to this there were considerable decreases recorded for Georgia and Zimbabwe during the same periods. 

Jordan and the State of Palestine experienced minimal representation in 2022 with close to zero beneficiaries and following substantial increases the number of beneficiaries grew to 2,766 and 877 respectively in 2024. 

Yes, they can work if they have a Labour Market Access permit, which can only be granted once they have been in Ireland for at least six months. Previously this was nine months until it was reduced in 2021. 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 commencement.

For example, 77% of all new DEA beneficiaries from 2022 showed employment activity in 2024. In terms of a gender breakdown, for all new DEA beneficiaries from 2022, 83% of men and 65% of women had employment activity. In addition, when we look at age groups, the 25-44 age group had the highest employment activity. For the purposes of this analysis, any employments of less than €500 per annum and employments where the duration was less than two weeks in the year were excluded. 

We also know from the analysis carried out by our Labour Market and Earnings colleagues that non-Irish nationals, which would include a number of International Protection applicants, accounted for 21.0% of all employments in Ireland in Q2 2025.

In time we aim to develop the methodology further to identify the employment sectors that the beneficiaries engage with, and this will help provide additional independent insights on people residing in Ireland under International Protection.