Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I am obliged to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I dealt with the question of subsidiary protection. The other issue that can arise is whether there are other reasons a person should be allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds. All this is addressed in a lengthy consideration of representations by the Minister. This inevitably delays the final decision, and the delay itself can affect the outcome. Under the single procedure, the protection applicant will be asked to set out all grounds, including protection grounds under the Geneva Convention and the EU Qualification Directive 2004/83/EC, on which he or she wishes to remain in the State, and all those grounds will be investigated by the Minister.

The possible outcomes of the investigation are as follows: first, the person is allowed to remain in the State on refugee grounds or subsidiary protection grounds and is granted a protection declaration; second, the person is allowed to remain in the State on other discretionary grounds and is granted a residence permit on that basis; third, the person is not allowed to remain in the State and is thus required to leave or be removed. Each applicant will be given a special protection application entry permission, which will remain valid until the last step in the process. For those who succeed, that entry permission will be replaced with the appropriate entry or residence permit. For those who are unsuccessful, the protection application entry permission will cease and any person who does not leave will be unlawfully present in the State from that point on, with the consequences that I have already covered.

The introduction of the single procedure will bring the State into line with processes in many other EU states. Under the Bill, the functions currently carried out by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner will be subsumed into the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, an administrative body within my Department. The present statutory provisions allowing access to information about cases by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and allowing a representative of the UNHCR to be present at individual interviews are restated. I intend to continue the co-operation that has existed with UNHCR, particularly that body's signal contribution to the training of staff in refugee decision-making.

The Refugee Appeals Tribunal will be replaced by the Protection Review Tribunal, which will be statutorily independent and will deal with appeals against a refusal to grant refugee status or subsidiary protection under the EU qualification directive. This expanded remit for the appeals body underpins our commitment to those in need of protection. Other changes provided for in the Bill include the possibility of establishment of full-time members of the tribunal, provisions to increase consistency in decision-making among tribunal members and arrangements for access to previous decisions of the tribunal that will take account of the jurisprudence in this area while continuing to respect the privacy rights of applicants, the infringement of which could put them or their connections at home at risk.

The new approach to protection applications will result in a more streamlined and efficient process which will ensure that a protection applicant receives a quick and comprehensive answer to the question of whether he or she can remain in the State. In this way it ensures the State's obligations under the Geneva Convention on Refugees and other international instruments will be fully respected and enshrined in law while reducing the scope for abuse of the arrangements.

I will comment on some miscellaneous provisions in the Bill. Part 8 contains provisions dealing with a variety of matters, some of which I propose to comment on here. If Deputies have any questions about particular provisions on which I do not touch in this contribution, I will do my best to ensure they can be covered in my closing speech.

Section 118 deals with the question of judicial review in immigration matters and is modelled on the existing provisions of section 5 of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000. Deputies will recall that this provision was the subject of a Supreme Court finding of compatibility with the Constitution in 2000. The intention now as then is to prevent the misuse of the judicial process by a foreign national solely or mainly for the purpose of frustrating his or her removal from the State. In a feature not hitherto seen in immigration legislation, the Bill reproduces a provision that already exists generally in statutory form in the Rules of the Superior Courts, providing that the court may award costs against a lawyer who brings a frivolous or vexatious case on behalf of a client. Another feature is the statement in section 118(9) and (10) acknowledging that the existence of a judicial review need not, of itself, act to postpone a person's removal from the State and leaving it to the court to decide whether to permit or suspend the removal in each case. I can say at this stage that I am thinking again about a number of aspects of this section and may have to introduce further amendments in respect of this subject on Committee Stage.

Section 123 is an attempt to curb the growing problem of marriages of convenience, a problem that is being observed not just in Ireland, but across Europe. This provision has already been the subject of a fair deal of comment, not all of which appears to acknowledge that there is a substantial trade in marriages for the purpose in particular of conferring on non-EU nationals the important immigration advantage of being able to move with relative freedom throughout the EU. The fact that there is a real trade in marriage is particularly evidenced by advertisements in newspapers and websites in the Baltic states. The law in this area is the subject of evolving jurisprudence and I believe that we will have to revisit the current section on Committee Stage. Addressing this issue in legal terms is difficult and I am not suggesting that the draft before the House in section 123 is a perfect solution to the problem. I am open to constructive suggestions as to how we might tackle this sensitive and serious subject.

Section 124 deals with the immigration aspects of our commitment to fight trafficking and support victims of trafficking. Deputies are aware of the strategy that has been put in place to deal with the issue of human trafficking and the many strands of that strategy, including legislative measures contained in the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Bill, the establishment of the high level group on combating trafficking in human beings, the drafting of a national action plan and the establishment of the new anti-human trafficking unit. The measures contained in the Bill will further strengthen the work undertaken in this regard by providing for a period of recovery and reflection in the State and, in certain circumstances, periods of temporary residence in the State. Part 9 contains necessary transitional provisions which I will not address at this stage.

To conclude, I am asking the House to support and approve our efforts to put in place the most comprehensive immigration legislation since the foundation of this State. It will enable this and future Governments to devise and implement immigration policies that complement wider Government strategy. The tools required must be sufficiently flexible to accommodate a great variety of approaches of circumstances and the unknown combinations of economic and social challenges that we will meet in the future. The legislation must be seen to operate in a predictable manner in individual cases and to incorporate fairness of procedure at every stage. There must be effective measures to deal with the situation where individuals take it upon themselves to ignore or circumvent decisions arrived at fairly in the interests of the State. This Bill has been devised with those principles in mind and I commend it to the House.

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