Mr. Brian Purcell:

While I am looking for that information, I might give the Deputy further information on costs. The figure for the cost of judicial reviews and other legal costs in 2012, in so far as the service is provided by the legal services support unit of the repatriation division, was €4.36 million, which includes the figure for legal challenges taken against decisions to deport or transfer, as well as for challenges to decisions taken by the INIS's EU treaty rights, general immigration and family reunification areas. A small proportion of the costs involve arises from other legal challenges to procedural decisions in the asylum immigration process, for example, inquiries under Article 40.4 of the Constitution in respect of detention and injunction hearings. That figure does not include the cost of judicial review proceedings taken against the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, the Refugee Appeals Tribunal or the citizenship division of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service. As I said, overall legal costs for all INIS and related areas amounted to €8.6 million and €6.3 million for the years 2011 and 2012, respectively.

Where the courts rule in favour of an applicant, legal costs in a case are usually awarded against the Minister and the applicant's costs are met from the Minister's Vote. The applicant's costs may also be met from the Minister's Vote in certain cases arising from settlements between the parties. The Minister's own legal costs which are very significant are met from the Vote of the Chief State Solicitor's office and, consequently, are reflected in the figure given. Contributions towards the Minister's legal costs have been received from the applicants in a small number of cases and recovery of these costs was managed by the Chief State Solicitor's office.

On processing times, one of the matters on which we have received a certain level of criticism during the years has been the asylum system and the length of time it takes to process asylum applications, with the duration of waiting times regularly quoted in years. That view is not necessarily correct and may sometimes be informed by a misunderstanding of the processing system. In 2012 the Minister made 1,023 decisions on refugee status. The medium processing time of asylum applications, including the appeal stage, in this period was 8.3 months. Persons who are refused asylum enter what is commonly referred to as the leave to remain process under section 3 of the Immigration Act 1999. This is separate from the asylum or refugee status determination process. The leave to remain process involves consideration of applications for subsidiary protection and other reasons a failed asylum seeker may present for remaining in the State. The processing of such cases is complex and extremely resource intensive. The investigation of the subsidiary protection application requires a fresh examination of the entire asylum file, the documentation and country of origin information submitted in support of the application, as well as an examination of the objective and reputable up-to-date country of origin information before a conclusion can be arrived at as to whether the applicant is likely to be exposed to serious harm if returned to his or her country of origin. Where such an application is refused, consideration must be given to the case in accordance with the provisions of section 3 of the Act, at which point the Minister must make a decision as to whether to make a deportation order in respect of the person concerned. All of this must be carried out in strict compliance with the Constitution, together with relevant international treaties such as the European Convention on Human Rights. It will be seen that these are not quick or easy decisions to make, given the life-changing consequences for the persons involved and because of this, decisions must be taken with the most scrupulous care and attention.

Steps have been taken to speed up the processing of applications, initially by redeploying staff from the refugee determination bodies and more recently by the decision to establish a case processing panel of legally qualified graduates to assist in clearing the backlog. In addition, we hope the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill will substantially simplify and streamline the existing arrangements and provide applicants with a final decision on their applications in a more straightforward and timely fashion.