Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 May 2013
297. Deputy Nicky McFadden asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if he will outline the way the Common European Asylum System will ensure that the European Union has a fair and effective system for processing asylum applications that is also robust and not open to abuse; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21449/13]
View answerThe Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is provided for in Title V of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) which states that the Union shall constitute an area of freedom, security and justice. Article 78 of the TFEU provides that the Union shall develop a common policy on asylum, subsidiary protection and temporary protection with a view to offering appropriate status to any third-country national requiring international protection in accordance with the principle of non-refoulement and the 1951 Geneva Convention on the status of refugees.
Measures relating to the CEAS are covered by the EU Treaty Protocol on the position of the United Kingdom and Ireland in respect of the area of freedom, security and justice. The Protocol allows either Member State to opt into EU measures pursuant to Title V of the TFEU. The principal EU instruments which comprise the CEAS are the Dublin Regulation and three Directives dealing with reception conditions, asylum procedures and qualification. At the present time Ireland participates in the Dublin Regulation, the 2004 Qualification Directive and the 2005 Asylum Procedures Directive.
The Dublin Regulation provides that an application for asylum (international protection) lodged by a third country national in a Member State shall be examined by a single Member State which shall be determined in accordance with the hierarchy of criteria set out in Chapter III of the Regulation. These criteria are based on the general principle that responsibility for examining an application should primarily lie with the Member State which played the greatest part in the applicant’s entry into and presence in the territories of the Member States with some exceptions designed to protect family unity. In an area without controls at the internal borders of the Member States, a mechanism for determining responsibility for asylum applications lodged in the Member States was needed in order, on the one hand, to guarantee effective access to the procedures for determining refugee status and not to compromise the objective of the rapid processing of asylum applications and, on the other, to prevent abuse of asylum procedures in the form of multiple applications for asylum submitted by the same person in several Member States with the sole aim of extending his or her stay in the Member States.
The 2005 Asylum Procedures Directive contains provisions dealing with:
a) basic principles and guarantees, including access to the procedure, the right to remain in the Member State pending the examination of the application, the personal interview of an asylum applicant and guarantees for unaccompanied minors;
b) procedures at first instance, including the examination procedure, prioritisation and acceleration of any examination, inadmissible applications, the safe country of origin concept, subsequent applications and failure to appear; and
c) procedures for the withdrawal of refugee status and appeals procedures.
The 2004 Qualification Directive contains provisions dealing with:
a) the assessment of applications for international protection, including assessment of facts and circumstances on an individual basis;
b) qualification for being a refugee, including cessation and exclusion clauses;
c) qualification for subsidiary protection, including cessation and exclusion clauses; and
d) the content of international protection, including protection from refoulement, residence permits, access to employment, education, social welfare and health care.
My Department and the independent bodies under the aegis of my Department, i.e. the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, have considerable experience in the operation of the legal framework comprising the CEAS instruments in which Ireland participates. On the basis of this experience I am of the view that this legal framework does allow for a fair and effective system for processing asylum applications that is also robust and capable of preventing the institution of asylum being resorted to for purposes alien to those for which it is intended.
