Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 715: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to list the former members of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal; the dates of their appointment; and the remuneration paid to each of them in each of the years during which they were members of the tribunal. [15086/06]

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 former members and the remuneration paid to each of them in each of the years since their appointment is concerned, is set out at Table 1 and Table 2 below. Members of the tribunal are appointed for a term of three years which may be renewed.

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 and had taken some 23,107 decisions up to the end of 2005. It has also tackled the number of appeals on hand on an ongoing basis. It has moved from a situation where it had some 2,596 appeals to clear on 31 January 2004, some 990 of which were six months old, to a situation at the end of March 2006 where it had 1,614 appeals on hand, 421 of which were more than six months old.

In line with the general downwards 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.