THE UN refugee agency has called on the Government to reform its asylum system as a matter of urgency and reiterated its concern about the low recognition rate for refugees in Ireland.
The agency’s Irish office issued the advice on World Refugee Day yesterday as new figures show the number of asylum claims in Ireland continues to fall and very few people are offered protection.
New figures published by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner show there have been 470 new applications for refugee status in the first four months of 2011, down from 692 in the same period during 2010.
There were 17 positive recommendations by the commissioner in the period to the end of April, compared to 14 in the same period of 2010.
The EU statistics agency Eurostat recently found Ireland had the lowest recognition rate for refugees in the union, at 1.5 per cent, significantly below an average EU recognition rate of 25 per cent.
Sophie Magennis, head of the UN agency’s Irish office, said the differences in refugee recognition rates in the EU was a cause of concern for the agency as it suggested unequal access to protection.
She said the asylum system in Ireland should be reformed to introduce a single procedure.
She said the average length of time to determine an application for subsidiary protection was currently four years, which was creating big “gaps in protection”.
Under EU law, subsidiary protection is available when a person cannot return to their country due to generalised or indiscriminate violence in their home country.
Under the current system, immigration officials must first consider whether someone is a refugee in fear of individual persecution before they consider whether they should be granted subsidiary protection.