Mr. Brian Killoran:

I will respond to a question on the immigration system asked by Deputy Cairns. There are a number of different things to the issue and not all of them are massively complicated in terms of what might need to be done. We are not necessarily talking about legislation. We are not necessarily talking about massive immigration reform writ large. A lot of it is bureaucratic and administrative. Some of that stems from the bureaucracy involved internally within the Department of Justice as regards how we administer the immigration system in Ireland. One thing that most people will not be familiar with is that a huge proportion of our immigration system is based on ministerial discretion. We have a broad framework of immigration and legislation that is the bricks and mortar of our approach in Ireland. However, a large amount of this is done through statutory instruments, policy statements and through somewhat opaque and invisible immigration procedures. The level of ministerial discretion is extremely high and guides decisions but that can lead to a large amount of inconsistency in application. One will see two people in very similar circumstances make applications yet both get different answers. I mean that on paper there would be no difference in their circumstances so there is no rationale for different decisions.

The internal guidelines within the Department of Justice around applications, and the internal sharing of data across the different sections of the Department of Justice, are really important. Again, we must ensure that somebody is not going through one application process with one part of the Department of Justice and has to do it again with the Garda, a residency permission, a renewal permission and then citizenship further down the road. A lot of that information can be streamlined to make things a lot of easier

To address the overall issue of ministerial discretion, discretion is necessary within an immigration system. One needs to have flexibility to manage the strange and unusual situations that may arise or where people do not fit necessarily within criteria. At the same time, we need much more clear guidelines and procedures to cover 80% of cases both internally and then communicated externally to applicants, service providers and other Departments. It is a big exercise to do but at the same time the initiative would have huge benefits in terms of increasing the transparency of the decision-making process. Such an initiative would also assist the decision-making process within the Department.

People do not realise that most applications do not have an appeals process. There are some appeals processes within the immigration system but a huge amount of applications do not have an appeals process. For example, if one is refused citizenship there is nowhere to appeal that decision. One can go to the back of the queue, apply for citizenship again and, hopefully, get a different answer. A lack of an appeals process is problematic because it would sort an issue in a lot of circumstances. An appeals process would sort out issues with documentation or glitches along the road. An appeals process would have a huge impact when one considers the amount of immigration cases that are in the High Court. Sometimes cases go to the High Court for judicial review because there is simply nowhere else to take them. There is no appeals process in between. I think that introducing appeals processes as a regular occurrence within the immigration system would address a lot of issues.

I shall make a final point about the overall approach. Moving towards legislation and increased transparency in terms of policies and procedures is definitely something that needs to happen in order to move away from discretion as the guiding principle of many of our immigration processes. A lot of our immigration system was set up in the early 2000s when a high emphasis was placed on rooting out fraud. A migrant needs to repeatedly explain something to us so that we can be satisfied that in the last 12 months one has not gotten into trouble with the authorities or not done X, Y or Z.

That governing principle of taking every available opportunity to root out fraud does not translate at all into massive levels of detection of fraud. There is fraud within the immigration system, like there is within any other system. However, it is minimal. That lens that we have of needing to check in with somebody every 12 months and not, for example, issuing a status as three-years long, or five-years long, needs to be challenged. People need to get longer and more secure immigration statuses and quicker routes to more secure immigration statuses as well. There is a number of things in that. These are all practical things. We are not moving continents here to do this. These are practical administrative reforms that would have a huge impact on the system.