The number of asylum applicants registered in Ireland in 2011 was far below the EU average, the European Commission has said.
Figures published last week show Ireland received 290 asylum seekers per million inhabitants compared to an EU average of 600 per million.
France (with 56,250), Germany (53,260) and Italy (34,115) had the highest number of applicants among the EU’s 27 member states.
A statement from Eurostat, the European Union statistical office, said that the number of people registering for asylum in Ireland in 2011 “was 1,290, with the largest numbers coming from Nigeria (180), Pakistan (175) and China (140).
“In Ireland, 1,365 first decisions were made on asylum applications in 2011. There were 1,295 rejections, 60 applications were granted refugee status and 15 were granted subsidiary protection.”
In total, the EU 27 received 301,000 asylum applications compared to 259,000 applicants in 2010. Eurostat believes that 90 per cent of these were from new applicants.
The statement added that “237,400 first instance decisions were made on asylum applications. There were 177,900 rejections (75% of decisions), 29,000 applicants (12%) were granted refugee status, 21,400 (9%) subsidiary protection, and 9,100 (4%) authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons.”
Eurostat emphasised that first instance decisions made in 2011 may refer to applications registered in previous years, and that applicants’ countries of origin differ greatly between member states.
Top asylum producing countries recorded for 2011 are Afghanistan, which produced 28,000 (or 9% of the total) and Russia with 18,200 (6%), followed by Pakistan at 15,700 (5%), Iraq’s 15,200 and 13,900 from Serbia.
Ten of the 27 EU member states received over 90 per cent of the entire asylum applicants. France registered the highest number with 56,300, followed closely by Germany which received 53,300, Italy 34,100 and Belgium 31,900.
Others include Sweden (29,700), the United Kingdom with (26,400), the Netherlands (14,600), Austria (14,400), Greece (9,300) and Poland (6,900).
Some EU states were notable for receiving the bulk of their applicants from a single country. Poland topped this list with 63 per cent of all applicants hailing from Russia.
Meanwhile, when compared with the population of each member state, the highest rates of applicants registered were recorded in Malta (4,500 applicants per million inhabitants), Luxembourg (4,200), Sweden (3,200), Belgium (2,900) and Cyprus (2,200).
