Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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498. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons in direct provision for more than one year, for more than two years, for more than three years, for more than four years, for more than five years and for six years or more; the cost of direct provision in 2013; the estimated costs in 2014; his plans to shorten the average time to process claims to remain in the country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50302/13]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) is responsible for the accommodation of persons under the system of direct provision while their applications for international protection are being processed. RIA itself has no function in determining whether someone should stay or not in its accommodation. Its function is to provide accommodation and ancillary services to those who have sought international protection and who otherwise have no means of supporting themselves.

The specific statistics sought by the Deputy are in the table below. It should be noted that the overall length of time taken to process cases to their finality is determined not just by the length of time taken to process the cases by the independent refugee determination bodies and by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) but also by the time needed to determine the outcome of any consequential legal proceedings taken by the applicant.

INIS has no desire to have applicants remain in the system any longer than the minimum period it takes to process their case. However, ultimately a balance has to be struck between maintaining the integrity of the State’s protection and immigration systems and the case put forward by the individual applicant all of which must be considered within the legal requirements and obligations. In the first instance requirements are set-down in primary and secondary legislation and these requirements are constantly evolving taking into account interpretation of the law by the Courts at both national and EU level.

I acknowledge that the length of time that residents spend in Direct Provision is an issue to be addressed. An amended Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill, which I will introduce next year, should substantially simplify and streamline the existing arrangements for asylum, subsidiary protection and leave to remain applications. It will do this by making provision for the establishment of a single application procedure, so that applicants can be provided with a final decision on all aspects of their protection application in a more straight forward and timely fashion.

Pending the enactment and commencement of the new legislation and with a view to improving processing, I recently signed into law a Statutory Instrument to introduce new procedures for the processing of subsidiary protection applications by the Offices of the Refugee Applications Commissioner at first instance and, on appeal, by the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.

There are some caveats in relation to the table above. Firstly, protection applicants are not required to live in RIA accommodation and in many cases may move in and out of the direct provision system as their circumstances change. In this table, up and including 2010 duration of stay was calculated by reference to the time that had elapsed since residents first made an application for international protection. It does not necessarily mean that those persons have lived in RIA accommodation for all of that period. Arising from the creation of a new database which allows for more detailed information, since 2011 duration of stay is calculated from the date of the latest entry into RIA accommodation, rather than from the initial protection application. It does not include past time spent by residents who left the system for a period and subsequently sought and were granted re-access to the system.

The budgetary provision for RIA in 2013 is €57.5m and that will reduce to €51.9m for 2014. Detailed breakdowns of yearly expenditure for the years 2007 to 2012 inclusive are given in the Annual Reports for those years as published on the RIA website - www.ria.gov.ie.