New Government Bill to speed up asylum process

The Government is to publish a Bill in the coming weeks that aims to speed up the asylum process and reduce the amount of time people spend in the direct provision system.

The International Protection Bill, a general scheme of which is likely to be approved by Cabinet by the end of the month, will provide for a single procedure where asylum seekers have their requests for refugee status and other forms of protection dealt with at the same time.

The current fragmented system, where applications for different forms of protection are made sequentially, is partly blamed for chronic delays that have kept some people in direct provision housing for up to seven years.

Plans for a single procedure have circulated for almost a decade and were first included in the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill by then minister for justice Brian Lenihan in 2008. That draft law has gone through several revisions but has yet to be enacted.

Due to persistent delays in the system and pressure on Government over direct provision, however, Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has split the asylum reforms from the main immigration overhaul and plans to publish them in a shorter, dedicated Bill.

Other EU states

All other EU member states have a single application procedure for asylum seekers, and the Government has been urged by the

United Nations

high commissioner for refugees to follow suit.

Under the current system, an asylum seeker is interviewed by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner to determine whether he might be persecuted on grounds such as race, religion, nationality or political opinion if sent back to his country of origin.

If the answer is yes, the applicant is recognised as a refugee. Some 18 per cent of asylum seekers were granted refugee status in 2013, close to the EU average and a significant rise on the 1.2 per cent in 2010.

If the refugee application is rejected, the decision can be appealed to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal and/or reviewed by the High Court.

It is only after this process is completed that the authorities decide if an individual qualifies for “subsidiary protection”, a status introduced by the EU in 2003 for people who don’t meet the strict refugee definition but who would be subject to serious human rights violations if returned home.

Waiting times

The average waiting time as of late last year was four years, but some people have been in the system for up to seven years. While awaiting a decision, asylum seekers are housed in “direct provision” accommodation, where they are given meals and an allowance of €19.10 a week, but are prohibited from taking up paid work.

The new Bill is designed to simplify and speed up the process. It will mean that all types of protection, including refugee status and subsidiary protection, as well as any other grounds that may prevent the Minister from deporting an individual, will be investigated and decided on at the same time.

Discussions are continuing in the Department of Justice on ways in which the Bill can be framed so as to also benefit people whose applications are already in the system.

The volume of judicial review cases taken by asylum seekers has caused a bottleneck in the High Court, where about 1,000 cases are waiting to be heard.