Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In fairness, we have made a number of changes and have committed to making further changes and ensuring they are properly implemented. Since November 2013, we have transferred responsibility for processing applications to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, ORAC. New arrangements have been made to include an interview of applicants, an appeal mechanism has been introduced, internal resources have been redeployed to deal with the case load, a legally qualified panel has been set up to assist the ORAC with processing applications and the UNHCR is to assist with training and implementation of the new processing regime. These are some of the changes that have been brought about in the past 12 months.
The Minister committed to publishing the Bill regarding protection in January and the working group is due to report by Easter 2015.