Vol. 481 No. 4
229 Mr. G. Reynolds asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason Deputy Gerard Reynolds has not received a reply to correspondence on behalf of persons (details supplied) in County Sligo which was sent to his Department on 10 September 1997. [16349/97]
The correspondence to which the Deputy refers is but one of hundreds of representations received by me over recent months in what appears to be an Amnesty campaign regarding, inter alia, the implementation of the Refugee Act. Most of the letter-writers wrote identical or very similar letters to all of their constituency TDs who in turn wrote to me. This has led to a situation where the same initial letter can require up to five separate replies. To reply to all these letters means that staff who should be dealing with asylum applicants are diverted to replying to circular letters — surely this is not what was intended by the writers.
A rely will issue to the Deputy's representations in due course. I note that the Deputy tabled an earlier question to me on 1 October on what I presume was this matter. It strikes me that this is a somewhat expensive and time-consuming way of dealing with routine correspondence.
