Centres for asylum seekers too costly, says Minister

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has rejected a recommendation from an expert study on asylum law that asylum-seekers should not be held in prisons or police jails.

While Mr O'Donoghue agreed that "detention of asylum-seekers in prisons or Garda stations may not be ideal", he said he had "no expectation at this stage that the economies of scale to be derived from the building of centres dedicated to the detention of asylum-seekers will warrant such capital expenditure."

A briefing paper outlined the Minister's response to the Department-commissioned report, Refugee Law Comparative Study, which was carried out by UCD's Faculty of Law and featured in yesterday's Irish Times.

Another recommendation, that the Refugee Act be amended to specify maximum time limits for detention, was also rejected. Mr O'Donoghue said the District Court had to review each detention every 10 days, and this provided a sufficient safeguard.

On publishing asylum appeal decisions, as is usual in many EU states, the Minister said he would consider the recommendation, "in light of the experience gained in the operation of the Act and, in particular, the advice of the Refugee Advisory Board".

Meanwhile the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has blamed an administrative error for its failure to release the report under the Freedom of Information Act last month, despite the fact that it had already been published.

On January 20th The Irish Times applied under the 1997 Act for access to the report, which was published seven days later.

However, in a reply to The Irish Times dated February 22nd, the Department said it was refusing the FoI request on the grounds that release of the report and records relating to it could "interfere with the deliberative processes" of the Department. The Department had taken the maximum allowed period of four weeks before making its reply.

A spokesman for the Department said yesterday it had been unaware the report had been published at the time of writing. He said it appeared up to 150 copies of the report had been sent by the Government Stationery Office directly to the Government Publications Office "unbeknown to us. It was not intended to publish the report until this week or next week at the earliest."

He denied there was any attempt to avoid attention being drawn to publication of the report.