Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 413: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the average length of time it takes for a judicial review application by an asylum seeker to be processed; the average length of time that elapses between the date the notice of motion issues grounding application for leave to apply by way of judicial review against a decision of his, the Office of the Refugee Appeals Commissioner or the Refugee Appeals Tribunal and the hearing of the leave application; the average time that elapses between the date of the hearing of the leave application and the hearing of the full judicial review application. [18442/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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Judicial reviews of recommendations, determinations or decisions of the Refugee Applications Commissioner or the Refugee Appeals Tribunal are dealt with, as appropriate, by the independent offices involved. Judicial reviews of the Minister's decisions in this area involve mostly challenges to deportation orders, proposals to deport and related matters. My Department has a judicial review unit to deal with these matters. Both the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Office of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal have been consulted regarding this question and the following is the position.

The various offices involved do not keep records of the length of time it takes to have cases determined at either the leave or substantive stages. It is not possible to state an average length of time for the determination of a judicial review case. There are so many factors and circumstances which can arise in any case that attempting to calculate an average time would involve a disproportionate amount of time and resources which could not be justified in the context of the more urgent demands on the resources of the various offices involved.

A small number of cases have been determined within a matter of a month or two of their being filed in the High Court. These were cases where urgent matters were involved, for example, the applicant was in detention or an injunction was sought. On the other hand, there were cases which progressed on appeal to the Supreme Court and where, obviously, significantly more time was involved. While cases are pending before the courts, various matters can arise which might add to or curtail the time involved, for example, requests for discovery, separate applications for residency, settlement negotiations, etc. Progress in these cases is also dependent on the availability of a hearing date. For those reasons, almost every case is unique and it would not be possible to identify a mean average length of time for each stage of the judicial review process without, as I mentioned above, devoting a disproportionate amount of time and resources to the task.