Ireland has taken in nearly 10,000 asylum seekers already this year – and that does not include the 54,000 Ukrainians who have arrived in Ireland since the war began.

It is a 700% increase on the numbers arriving last year; however, the Department of Justice said this is because COVID restrictions prevented international travel for large parts of 2021.

Around 400 asylum seekers are currently arriving in Ireland every week and by the end of the year, the country is expected to have taken in around 15,000.

That would be more than triple the numbers seen arriving in the years before the pandemic – 4,781 in 2019 and 3,674 in 2018.

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