Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 1023: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the position regarding an application for residency and leave to remain in the case of a person (details supplied) in Dublin 8; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32631/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The persons concerned are a family unit, comprising a mother, a father and three young children. The mother applied for asylum on 3 April 2006. She gave birth to the second person referred to and this child was included as a child dependant in her mother's application for asylum. The father applied for asylum on 3 December 2007 while a separate asylum application was lodged in respect of the fourth person referred to, an infant, on 20 January 2009. The fifth person referred to is the couple's youngest child.

The asylum applications made by the first, third and fourth persons referred to were refused and, in accordance with the provisions of Section 3 of the Immigration Act 1999 (as amended), they were notified, by letters dated 26 August 2010, 10 September 2008 and 28 July 2010 respectively, that the Minister proposed to make Deportation Orders in respect of each of them. They were each given the options, to be exercised within 15 working days, of leaving the State voluntarily, of consenting to the making of a Deportation Order or of making representations to the Minister setting out the reasons why a Deportation Order should not be made against them. In addition, they were notified of their respective entitlements to apply for Subsidiary Protection in accordance with the European Communities (Eligibility for Protection) Regulations 2006 (S.I. No. 518 of 2006).

The persons concerned submitted individual applications for Subsidiary Protection. When consideration of these applications has been completed, the persons concerned will be notified in writing of the outcomes.

In the event that the applications for Subsidiary Protection are refused, the position in the State of the persons concerned will then be decided by reference to the provisions of Section 3(6) of the Immigration Act 1999 (as amended) and Section 5 of the Refugee Act 1996 (as amended) on the prohibition of refoulement. All representations submitted will be considered before the files are passed to me for decision. Once decisions have been made, these decisions and the consequences of the decisions will be conveyed in writing to the persons concerned.

Insofar as the position of the fifth person referred to is concerned, the Deputy will be aware that it is not the practice to comment on individual asylum applications where a final decision has not been made. However, the Deputy should note that applications for refugee status in the State are determined by an independent process comprising the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal which make recommendations to the Minister for Justice and Law Reform on whether such status should be granted.

I should remind the Deputy that queries in relation to the status of individual immigration cases may be made directly to INIS by e-mail using the Oireachtas Mail facility which has been specifically established for this purpose. The service enables up-to-date information on such cases to be obtained without the need to seek this information through the more administratively expensive Parliamentary Questions process.