Immigration staff overworked - review

Department of Justice officials dealing with immigration are so overstretched and under-resourced that they are unable to plan strategically, according to an independent report on the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS).

The review, undertaken by PA Consulting, was completed in July, and obtained under Freedom Of Information legislation. It also describes a wide variance in "quality controls" across the system, and a lack of transparency in the system for customers.

"Customers find it very hard to understand the decision-making process and outcomes. It is not possible for individual applicants to review the criteria upon which applications will be decided and see how they qualify.

"It is extremely difficult to access the helpline, and a consistent answer is not always obtained from the staff member who deals with the call."

The report was commissioned by the department to assess efficiency in INIS.

It says that between 2001 and 2004 the number of visa, immigration and citizenship applications had increased by 67 per cent, from 39,007 to 65,336. However, asylum applications declined by 40 per cent between 2003 and 2004.

Though staff are already being redeployed from asylum to immigration functions, the report says "the current structure [in immigration, visa and citizenships sections] has insufficient staff to perform operational functions".

"The effect of this imbalance is that senior grades have had to become involved in operational aspects of their units at the expense of shaping a more long-term strategic focus."

It says "the main driver of processes in the immigration area has been to keep pace with the additional volumes of applications in the context of insufficient resources".

In the context of new international immigration and security obligations, there is a "pressing need to improve the department's capacity to introduce new change initiatives".

The time taken on decisions on immigration, citizenship, family reunification and visa applications are lengthened. Citizenship applications are taking 24 months to process and "this is considered by officials to be excessive".

"Family reunification processes are worth highlighting as these have a huge impact on the 'customer' and are perceived to be unduly long."

The report calls for an end to the system where failed asylum seekers can apply for humanitarian leave to remain after their application fails. Consideration of grounds for leave to remain should be done in tandem with the initial asylum application.

The deportation process also needs to be streamlined, and the report calls legislation governing this area "outdated".

Just 20 per cent of those due for repatriation in fact leave the State, though this is a "particularly complex" area and one has to "have realistic expectations of what is achievable".

The department said action had been taken "in relation to the implementation of all the recommendations in the report".