Written Answers. - Refugee Status.
Jan O'Sullivan
Question:
376
Ms O'Sullivan
asked the
Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform
if, with regard to people from Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Hungary, and the Czech Republic who have sought refugee status since 1 January 1996 and who have referred to fear of persecution on the basis of their sexual orientation when seeking refugee status, regardless of whether that ground was the only ground or one of a number of grounds they cited and whether or not that ground was cited at the time of the initial application or introduced at a later stage, he will state, in respect of each of these countries, the number (i) who made such an application, (ii) whose application has been judged to be manifestly unfounded, (iii) who have been granted refugee status, (iv) who have not been granted refugee status, (v) in whose case a decision has not yet been made; the current status and number of any individuals not covered by parts (i) to (v) of this question; the number of this latter group, by country, who have been granted leave to remain in the State; the number who were not granted refugee status and who have not been granted leave to remain in the State giving the number from each of the countries named, who have been deported from the State giving the countries to which they were deported; and of those who were not granted refugee status and who have not been granted leave to remain in the State, the number, from each of the countries named, who left the State before they were deported.
[4828/01]
The Refugee Act, 1996, as amended by the Immigration Act, 1999, and the Illegal Immigrants Trafficking Act 2000, was commenced in full on 20 November, 2000. Under the Act, two independent statutory offices were established to consider applications-appeals for refugee status and to make recommendations to the Minister on whether such status should be granted. These two offices are the office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, which will consider applications for a declaration as a refugee at first instance and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal which will consider applications for a declaration at appeal stage.
Records were not maintained by the immigration and citizenship division or the asylum operations division of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, or since 20 November 2000, by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner to enable the figures requested by the Deputy to be extracted without the diversion of a disproportionate amount of staff resources. The information made available to me by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner is set out in the following tabular statement:
Applications for Asylum: 1st January, 1996-31st January, 2001.
|
Country
|
Czech Republic
|
Hungary
|
Lithuania
|
Poland
|
Romania
|
|
Number of applications for asylum
|
441
|
19
|
247
|
965
|
6,659
|
Information held in the office of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal is not kept in a manner which would readily identify the grounds submitted by applicants in their application for refugee status.
To elicit the information sought would necessitate individually examining each individual appeal received since 1 January 1996. The information made available to me by the office of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal is set out in the following tabular statement:
Number of Asylum Appeals: 1st January, 1996-31 January, 2001
|
Country
|
Czech Republic
|
Hungary
|
Lithuania
|
Poland
|
Romania
|
|
Number of appeals received
|
46
|
3
|
19
|
212
|
1,878
|
In relation to deportations, the position is that from the beginning of November 1999 to 12 February 2001, 229 people have been deported.
The vast majority of these were unsuccessful asylum applicants. Sixty-one were Polish, 75 were Romanian, and 38 were Czech nationals. There have been no Hungarians or Lithuanians deported to-date. It is general policy to deport persons to their country of origin except in one case where the Dublin Convention applied and a Romanian national was deported to another EU member state to have his asylum application processed there.
In addition, as far as the Department is aware, 119 Poles, 54 Romanians, two Lithuanians, and 33 Czech nationals have left the State voluntarily in advance of a decision. In addition, 21 Romanians left the State before deportation orders which had issued in relation to them could be effected.
Two Romanians have been granted leave to remain in the State other than on the basis of an Irish born child or marriage to an EU or Irish national during the period in question. The type of statistical information which is being collected at present in respect of the asylum process is currently under review in my Department in consultation with the offices of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.
