Chris Andrews (Dublin South East, Fianna Fail)
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Question 300: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his plans to streamline the appeals process for asylum seekers; his views on whether the protracted appeal system has any impact on the decision making process for asylum seekers; and the amount of money that has been spent by the State in 2008 and 2009 when defending deportation orders in the High Court and Supreme Court. [7595/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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My proposals in relation to the future of the asylum appeals system are set out in the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill 2008 which is currently before this House.

I am not clear on what the Deputy means by 'whether the protracted appeal system has any impact on the decision making process for asylum seekers'. Based on the latest information available to me to the end of December 2009, the median waiting time in the tribunal to process and complete a substantive oral appeal is 24 weeks and nine weeks in the case of a paper appeal. Cases taking longer than this to complete arise for many reasons such as adjournments, postponements, availability of interpreters, judicial reviews, etc.. All asylum appeals are processed in accordance with the Refugee Act 1996 (as amended), and high quality and fair decision making in all cases continues to be a high priority in the tribunal.

With regard to the Deputy's question concerning the amount of money spent by the State in 2008 and 2009 defending deportation orders in the High Court and Supreme Court, this information is not readily available and would require an inordinate amount of time and staff resources to extract it.