Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

It is my understanding that the tribunal already has within its discretion the power to publish decisions, if it so wishes, with sufficient details obscured to preserve the anonymity of applicants. The effect of the amendment would be to require the tribunal to make available to the public copies of its decisions on appeals with identifying information deleted unless the applicant were to request otherwise. Every decision made by the tribunal would have to be the subject, after it was delivered, of an extensive process whereby all the detail which could tend to identify the person in question would be removed. Some may think that is a simple task of looking for Christian names and names of villages or whatever and identifying material of that nature. However, it would not be that simple because, in many cases, the facts of a claim of persecution would clearly identify a person and expose them to danger in their home country in certain circumstances.

The amendment would cover both successful and unsuccessful appeals. An immense amount of time would have to be put into re-editing every decision to ensure it could not embarrass the applicant. Bearing in mind that the subject matter of these applications contains immensely personal or highly political details and material which would, in the ordinary course of events, tend to identify a person to anyone who had an interest in the country of origin, the amount of public time that would have to be taken to go through each decision to reduce it to a form that could not embarrass the applicant would effectively be a huge misuse of public resources.