Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 227: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the arrangements in place by his Department to accommodate persons who enter here as asylum seekers; the payments which are made to them while their case to remain here is being examined; the length of time it takes to have such cases processed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11293/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The Reception and Integration Agency, RIA, is responsible for the accommodation of asylum seekers through the policy of direct provision. Direct provision is the means by which the State discharges its obligations to provide for the basic requirements of asylum seekers. For the most part, that represents a cashless system, with the State assuming responsibility for providing suitable accommodation on a full-board basis. In addition, asylum seekers avail themselves of other State supports such as medical screening, medical cards and primary and secondary education.

The RIA currently operates 65 units in 23 counties throughout the State providing accommodation for almost 4,900 persons. That portfolio includes four main reception centres in Dublin at Balseskin, Kilmacud, Gardiner Street and Hatch Street. Under the system of direct provision, asylum seekers receive a weekly payment of €19.10 for adults and €9.60 for children. Community welfare officers also make exceptional needs payments, including payments to cover the cost of school uniforms, as appropriate.

Applications for refugee status in the State are determined by an independent process comprising the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, ORAC, and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, RAT, which make recommendations to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform on whether such status should be granted. Two types of processing caseloads exist in the ORAC and the RAT, namely, applications prioritised on foot of a ministerial prioritisation direction made under section 12 of the Refugee Act 1996 and cases in respect of which such a direction does not exist.

There is continued momentum in processing time scales for asylum applications, with new arrangements for speedier processing of prioritised asylum applications from nationals of Nigeria, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and South Africa introduced from January 2005, with a processing time of 17 working days in the first instance in ORAC, and 15 working days at appeal stage in RAT.

For other cases, the typical processing time in the ORAC is in the region of eight to nine weeks. The average length of time taken to process and complete substantive appeals in the RAT is approximately 14 weeks, and appeals determined on the basis of papers alone are completed in approximately five weeks.

Since 1 November 2005 all applicants for asylum have been notified of their interview date by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner at the time they make their application, except where that is not possible for medical or other compelling reasons. Following significant additional investment in the asylum determination process over the past few years, considerable progress has been made in processing asylum applications in the State and in the timescales involved.

That is evidenced, for example, by the fact that the number of cases over six months old in the ORAC and the RAT stood at 470 at the end of February 2006, compared with 1,057 in January 2005, some 2,910 cases in January 2004, and some 6,500 in September 2001.