Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 333: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the members of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal; the dates of their appointment and the remuneration paid to each of them in each of the years since their appointment. [14119/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The information required by the Deputy, in so far as the dates of appointment of members and the remuneration paid to each of them in each of the years since their appointment, is set out in tabular form. RAT members are appointed for a term of three years which is renewable.

As the Deputy is aware, the Refugee Appeals Tribunal is a statutory independent body established under the Refugee Act 1996 in order to deal with appeals against negative recommendations in respect of applications for refugee status issued by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, ORAC. The tribunal has been in operation since November 2000 and is comprised of a full-time chairperson and 33 part-time members. The tribunal has undertaken a significant job of work since its establishment, taking some 23,107 decisions up to the end of 2005. It has also been tackling on an ongoing basis the number of appeals on hand and moving from a situation where on 31 January 2004, it had some 2,596 appeals to clear — some 990 of which were six months old — to a situation at the end of February 2006 where it had 1,417 appeals on hand, 392 of which were over six months old.

In line with the general downward trend in asylum applications from, for example, 11,634 in 2002 to 4,323 in 2005, the cost of the operation of the tribunal can also be expected to continue to fall. This will allow the continued redeployment of resources from the asylum process to support the capacity of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, INIS, to enhance service provision in the area of immigration — visas, citizenship, etc. — as well as increasing the number of persons found not to have a protection need being returned to their country of origin.