the top of the IPO recommendation report,75 known as the section 39 report, nine of the decisions were linked to persons claiming to be stateless. This matter was explored at the substantive interview stage at the IPO. Most of the claims where the applicant asserted that they were stateless were accepted as stateless by the IPO apart from two claims where there was evidence to the contrary. The IPO reports analysed also demonstrated an understanding of the issues faced by stateless persons in their former country/countries of habitual residence and an effective analysis on how the applicant’s stateless status may impact upon their risk of persecution and/or serious harm upon return to a particular country of origin. In one section 39 report it was noted that:  “with regard to the above COI, the applicant is effectively stateless. As such, I find the applicant could not be repatriated to his country of habitual residence [] Bhutan. Every person has certain inalienable rights, including the right to nationality as per the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Repatriating the applicant to Bhutan where he would not have basic human rights would constitute degrading treatment.” While noting the limited scope of this analysis it is positive to see engagement by IPO decision makers with matters relating to statelessness and clear findings being made on a person’s status as stateless. However, the issue remains that such persons are not fully identified and recognised as stateless within the asylum procedure. The country of origin and nationality in IPO section 39 reports as well as the IPO case management databases refers to specific countries of nationality rather than recording applicants’ stateless status and country(ies) of habitual residence. There is also a lack of clarity on whether, once a finding of statelessness is made in the asylum procedure, it is technically possible to amend the case management database to accurately reflect that finding. Failure to do so means that such persons will not be included in the statistical record of stateless persons within the asylum procedure. This indicates that the true number of stateless persons in the asylum procedure may be higher than the official statistics.76 The IPO has confirmed that it is currently examining its information systems to see how it can enhance the capture of statistics in respect of stateless applicants as they move through the international protection process.77 UNHCR also undertook an analysis of the statelessness decisions in the IPAT decisions archive as part of this research. The analysis revealed that there was a gap between the number of cases officially recorded as stateless78 and the number of cases where statelessness was asserted by the applicant and expressly determined in the course of a Tribunal decision. From 2014 to the end of 2019, approximately79 28 cases were examined by the IPAT where statelessness was raised as an issue, 13 of which contained express determinations by the Tribunal members in finding the appellant’s stateless in their analysis of the claim. As is standard practice, each Tribunal decision has the following details listed at the top of the decision: 1) the appellant’s name; 2) the appellant’s nationality. Six cases indicated ‘stateless’ in the heading of the Tribunal decision regarding the appellant’s nationality, sometimes with the country of habitual residence also listed in brackets for. e.g. ‘stateless Myanmar.’ This is inconsistent with the statistical data recorded by IPAT for the same time period which indicates that IPAT only received one appeal from a stateless appellant. However, as indicated in Chapter 4 below, this issue arises as the Tribunal’s data of nationality is automatically recorded from the Asylum and Immigration Strategic Integration Programme System (AISIP) system and based on the IPO’s previous designation of nationality. The analysis of decisions in the IPAT decisions archive also shows that there were 7 cases were a nationality was listed at the top of the Tribunal decision but the appellant was actually found to be stateless by the Tribunal. Five cases explicitly referred to the 1954 UN Convention on Statelessness in the body of the analysis. Of the 13 decisions where statelessness was expressly determined, 12 were recognised by the Tribunal as being in need of international protection. Ethnic 22 75 This is known as the section 39 report under the International Protection Act 2015. 76 See Chapter 4 for the statistics on stateless persons in the asylum process. 77 Correspondence with an Assistant Principal, IPO, Department of Justice, January 2022. 78 For further information on the number of stateless appellants before the International Protection Appeals Tribunal see Chapter 4. 79 This is an approximation as it is not known if all Tribunal decisions issued by the IPAT were uploaded onto the decision archive during that time period. Mapping Statelessness in Ireland