Minister defends refugee tribunal

MINISTER FOR Justice Brian Lenihan accused Opposition TDs of trying to politicise the work of a public servant "who is doing his statutory duty", in the controversy surrounding the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.

"It is in nobody's interests, least of all, those who come to this country seeking the sanctuary of the Irish State, that the work of this important and independent body should be so traduced," he said.

The Minister was responding to Labour justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte who said the Minister had not acted on "the scandalous allegations that have come into the public domain concerning the manner of discharge of its functions" by the tribunal. He referred to sworn affidavits made by seven solicitors in 2006 in a judicial review application that a tribunal member Mr Nicholson had never been known to decide a case in favour of an asylum seeker."

Mr Lenihan said much reference had been made to allegations of bias against Mr Nicholson, a former member of the tribunal. He did not want to comment in detail on the legal issues involved in the Supreme Court case. "However I can point out that the chairman of the tribunal totally rejects all the allegations made." The Minister added: "A report in yesterday's Irish Times stated that the Legal Aid Board had written to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal asking it to review all the cases decide by its former member, Jim Nicholson. This report is misleading in a number of respects: the signatory to the letter is in fact an official of the Legal Aid Board reporting to the chief executive and not the chairman of the board, as was reported.

"I am also told that a number of the policy issues referred to in the letter, as reported in The Irish Times, have yet to be discussed at board level. This has been confirmed to my Department by the chief executive of the Legal Aid Board this afternoon."

He said "it been asserted that an average of 25 per cent of cases in 2005 was decided in favour of asylum seekers. This is not correct. The figure is in fact 12.8 per cent. In 2007 this figure fell to 10.2 per cent with the overall figure in respect of the period 2001 to 2007 coming in at 16.2 per cent. In other words, the affirmation rate for the entire period was 83.8%.

Last year saw the highest affirmation rate in the period with 89.8% of decisions of the commissioner affirmed." The reality was "that more than 90 per cent of applicants do not show up at official entry points and 90 per cent of all applications turn out to be unfounded. It should be of little surprise therefore, that a significant number of members of the tribunal have high affirmation rates."Mr Rabbitte said it was also claimed that tribunal chairman John Ryan refused to convene a meeting of the full membership of the tribunal to allow them to consider the case.

He expressed surprise that the Minister was expressly providing for the continuation of Mr Ryan in office in the new Immigration, Resident and Protection Bill.