Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

The Somalian woman referred to by the Deputy was granted refugee status in August 2004, and applied for family reunification in November 2004 in respect of her immediate and extended family members. Her application was processed in accordance with the provisions of the Refugee Act 1996, and a decision was made in the family reunification unit in August 2005 to grant family reunification to the immediate family members. At the same time, a separate decision was made refusing family reunification to the extended family members. Letters were prepared containing details of the decisions, but due to an unfortunate oversight, these letters were not issued at the time to the applicant. The file was inadvertently filed away and the relevant decision letters did not come to notice until February 2008, when a request under the Freedom of Information Act was received from the legal representatives of the woman concerned.

When the family reunification unit realised that the letters had not been issued, arrangements were made immediately to issue the letters to the applicant. Arrangements were also put in place to issue visas to the immediate family members through the Irish Embassy in Addis Ababa, in order to facilitate their entry into Ireland. However, some difficulties were encountered regarding the issue of the visas. Due to the passage of time since the original application for family reunification was made, further checks had to be carried out both in the Irish naturalisation and immigration service and at the Irish Embassy in Addis Ababa to verify the identities of the individuals involved, which included three young children. Such checks are very necessary in all applications for family reunification as great care has to be taken to ensure that the correct people are entering the State. The checks took about two weeks to complete, during which period the legal representatives of the person concerned pressed ahead with judicial review proceedings in the High Court. When the matter came before the High Court on 21 July 2008, it was explained that the visas were ready for collection at which point the judge adjourned the matter until 25 July. At the resumed hearing the matter was adjourned to the October term.

At that stage I ordered an internal review of all practices and procedures in the family reunification unit. The review was undertaken by staff at senior level and has since been completed. The review examined all files containing family reunification applications to ensure that there were no other similar cases left unattended. Following the review, new procedures are currently in the process of being developed and implemented and some additional resources have been allocated to the unit.

Additional information not provided on the floor of the House.

Having examined the matter, I am satisfied that this case was an unfortunate isolated incident caused by human error and I would like to assure the Deputy that the necessary remedial action has been taken to ensure that, in so far as possible, a similar situation will not occur again. I trust that the Deputy will also appreciate that as this particular case is currently the subject of High Court proceedings, I am constrained in the amount of information I can provide in response to his question.

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