Eoghan Murphy
Ceist:192. Deputy Eoghan Murphy asked the Minister for Justice and Equality his plans to grant an amnesty to all those in the asylum system for a period of four years or more. [7319/14]
Amharc ar fhreagraThursday, 13 February 2014
Ceisteanna (192)
Freagraí scríofa
There 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.