Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 273: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the safeguards which are in place to ensure that genuine refugees arriving here are not refused leave to land on the basis of insufficient documentation to prove their identity; and if none of the 1,117 persons refused leave to land in the first quarter of 2004 as reported by the Refugee Application Commissioner were genuine refugees. [14790/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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Immigration officers operating at ports and airports throughout the State are members of the Garda Síochána. They are obliged under the provisions of the Refugee Act 1996, as amended, to grant permission to land to a non national "who arrives at the frontiers of the State seeking asylum in the State or seeking the protection of the State against persecution or requesting not to be returned or removed to a particular country or otherwise indicating an unwillingness to leave the State for fear of persecution". It is a simple as that. This is the only criterion applied by immigration officers in determining whether or not to grant permission to land to an asylum seeker. Furthermore, an immigration officer has no role to play in determining the validity of an asylum claim — that task is assigned by law to the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.

The question of considering whether a non national should be given permission to land necessarily involves consideration of the adequacy of documentation presented but this only arises in cases where an immigration officer has a discretion in the matter. The extent of that discretion is set out in section 4 of the Immigration Act 2004. However, the effect of an asylum claim is to abrogate any discretion vested in the immigration officer.

It should be noted that the figure of 1,117 persons refused permission to land in the first quarter of 2005 is quoted by the Irish Refugee Council on its website and is not reported by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner.