Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 779: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will reconsider his position on extending to asylum seekers the right to work while their applications are in progress, in view of recent figures showing a sharp drop in asylum seekers over the past two years. [1671/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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As I have previously indicated in response to Parliamentary Questions No. 308 of 9 November 2004 and No. 429 of 30 November 2004, it is not proposed to allow asylum applicants to take up paid employment pending a final decision being made on their applications.

I believe that extending the right to work to asylum seekers, which would require legislative change, would have a very negative impact on asylum applications which fell by some 40% in 2004 as compared with 2003 and would impact negatively on the very considerable progress which has been made in terms of the reduction in timescales for processing applications and the number of cases in the asylum determination system for more than six months which are being reduced on an ongoing basis following considerable investment by the State in this area.

By way of illustration, I would refer the Deputy to the fact that a considerable increase in asylum numbers was experienced in the aftermath of the July 1999 decision to allow asylum seekers access to the labour market. This led to a three fold increase in the average number of applications per month, rising to 1,217 applications in December 1999 as compared to an average of 364 per month for the period January to July 1999.

Considerable progress has been made in the processing of asylum applications with the number of applications over six months in the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, ORAC, and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, RAT, standing at 1,144 at the end of December, 2004, as compared to some 6,500 applications outstanding at the end of September 2001.

Furthermore, the Deputy will also wish to be aware of the new arrangements for the speedier processing of asylum applications which I announced on 24 January 2005 and were implemented with immediate effect from 25 January. The new arrangements apply to nationals of those states which are subject to prioritisation orders for the purposes of asylum processing, namely, Nigeria, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and South Africa. These new arrangements include the reduction of processing timescales both at the initial stage in ORAC from the current six weeks to around three weeks, and for appeal determinations in RAT from an average of five weeks down to three weeks.

Any significant increase in asylum applications would also have a negative impact on our capacity to accommodate applicants while they are awaiting a determination of their claims. As things stand at the moment, the ongoing provision of services to meet the reception, health, welfare and accommodation needs of asylum seekers is an enormous challenge for all State agencies involved. The total cost to the State of the provision of asylum and immigration related services was in the region of €353 million in 2003.

I firmly believe that the greatest service we can provide to those who should be recognised as refugees is to ensure that their claims are decided speedily and that nothing is done which undermines this policy priority by attracting large numbers of non-genuine applicants to the detriment of genuine applicants. The structures currently in place provide the State with an asylum system that meets the highest international standards and fulfils our international obligations under the Geneva Convention to those seeking asylum. Overloading the process with large numbers of new applicants who come here under the misguided expectation that they will be able to work would be totally contrary to these obligations and could completely negate the major investment in effort, time and resources which has gone into bringing our overall strategy to its current status.