Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 408: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of people seeking asylum here who have applied and are awaiting a decision since pre-2003, 2003, 2004, 2005, and to date in 2006; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18101/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The information requested by the Deputy is set out in tabular format below.

Over recent years very considerable work has been undertaken in the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal as well as within the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service generally to deal with applications for asylum and speed up processing times. The work involved has resulted in a situation where:

∙Processing has continued to move strongly in both ORAC and RAT. At the end of April 2006 there were 2,593 cases on hands in both agencies compared to some 7,000 cases on hands at the end of January 2004.

∙The number of applications over six months in the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (RAT) at the end of April 2006 stood at 524 as compared to some 6,500 at the end of September 2001. The backlog of applications has been eliminated in ORAC with only 55 cases on hands over six months at the end of April 2006 and some 469 in RAT a significant number of which are at an advanced stage of processing.

∙There is continued momentum in processing timescales 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 17 working day processing time at first instance in ORAC and 15 working days at appeals stage in RAT. Currently, almost 40% of total applications fall into the prioritised category.

∙With effect from 1 November 2005, all applicants for asylum are notified of their interview date by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner at the time they make their applications. The interview appointment is normally within 20 working days of application. However, for those applicants within the prioritised category, interviews in ORAC are held, more speedily, within 9 to 12 days.

∙The typical processing time in the ORAC for non-prioritised cases is in the region of 8-9 weeks. The average length of time taken to process and complete substantive appeals in the RAT is approximately 14 weeks.

∙For a variety of reasons, there will always be some applications and appeals which take significantly longer than the average to complete which can arise for reasons such as judicial review proceedings.

I am sure the Deputy will agree that the large investment in resources by the Government in the asylum determination process in recent years in order, inter alia, to meet our obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees, has had a very significant impact in terms of processing times and the elimination of backlogs of claims outstanding.