Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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Question 207: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the measures he is taking to shorten the period of time it takes for decisions to be made in the asylum seeking process; his plans to speed up the process in particular for persons who have spent years in direct provision hostels and whose health and well-being is negatively affected; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45094/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware, applications for refugee status in the State are determined by an independent process comprising the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (RAT) which make recommendations to the Minister for Justice and Law Reform on whether such status should be granted.

At 31 October 2010, there were 530 persons awaiting a first instance asylum decision in the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC), while 1,055 persons were awaiting an asylum appeal decision in the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (RAT). For the avoidance of any misunderstanding, I should say that the majority of these cases are relatively recent applications i.e. in the system less than 12 months. Every effort is made to ensure applications in the asylum process are processed as promptly and as efficiently as possible within the resources available. Delays in the processing of applications can arise for many reasons such as postponements, adjournments, availability of interpreters, judicial reviews, medical reasons etc. I might add that the ORAC and the RAT keep their processing arrangements under ongoing review.