Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 June 2014
164. Deputy Regina Doherty asked the Minister for Justice and Equality in view of the extremely slow pace of processing applications of those residing in direct provision here if she has ever considered an amnesty approach; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26292/14]
View answerThere are no plans to grant an amnesty to asylum seekers based on the length of time spent in the asylum system. The Deputy might wish to note that at EU Level, the Member States, in agreeing the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum at the European Council in October 2008 made specific commitments "to use only case-by-case regularisation, rather than generalised regularisation, under national law, for humanitarian or economic reasons". While the Pact is not legally binding, the political commitment among Member States, then and now, is clearly against any form of process that would in any way legitimise the status of persons present in the State without first examining the merits of their individual cases. In Ireland's case there are also considerations based on maintaining the integrity of the Common Travel Area with the UK which must be taken into account. Any significant departure from well established policies in this respect would have a major impact on the operation of the Common Travel Area both here and in the United Kingdom. It must also be emphasised that broad regularisation programmes are problematic, in particular as they could give rise to unpredictable and potentially very costly impacts across the full range of public and social services. Clearly there would also be significant issues in allowing illegal immigrants access to the labour marker in the context of the very large number of people unemployed in the State. Similar issues would arise in respect of access to the housing market and its related supports, such as supplementary welfare payments, rent allowances and so forth.
It should also be noted that in very many instances the delay in finalising cases is due to applicants challenging negative decisions by initiating multiple judicial reviews at various stages of the process. Thousands of applications cannot be finalised because of these legal challenges. Moreover, many other failed protection applicants do not leave the State when subject to a Deportation Order even though the clear legal requirement is for them to leave the State.
Measures have recently been taken with a view to delivering improvements in the processing of protection applications. The Deputy may be aware that the European Union (Subsidiary Protection) Regulations 2013 (S.I. No. 426 of 2013) were signed into law by my predecessor last November. Under the new Regulations, responsibility for the processing of applications for subsidiary protection was transferred from my Department to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) with appeals to be dealt with by the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (RAT). Both of these bodies are independent in the exercise of their statutory functions and they have substantial experience in the area of asylum investigations and appeals, respectively. Additional resources have been allocated to the establishment and operation of the new arrangements for the processing of these cases which include the engagement of a panel of legally qualified persons to process cases, personal interviews for each applicant at the first instance and the opportunity for an applicant to appeal a negative recommendation of the ORAC to the RAT. The ORAC, in consultation with the UNHCR, have recently published on its website details of how it will prioritise the process of scheduling persons for interview taking into account, inter-alia, dealing with applicants who are longest in the system first. The intention is to process as many of these cases to finality as soon as possible to include consideration of any leave to remain aspects arising.
The Government remains committed to immigration and protection reform as provided for under the Programme for Government and under the Government Legislation Programme. Legislating to provide the means for a single procedure and related issues to deal with all protection claims is of priority in that it will provide the framework for removing the structural delays which are a feature of our existing protection system. In that respect work by my officials on legislative reform in this area continues, including in conjunction with the Offices of the Attorney General and of the Parliamentary Counsel, with a view to bringing forward legislation this year .
