Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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250. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she is aware of the recent scheme put into circulation by the Irish Refugee Council and Doras Luimní (details supplied); her views that, at present, the system for handling asylum seekers is too long, causing strain on many persons, before their application for work permits and residency are accepted; and if she will examine said scheme to try and alleviate the waiting time for migrants, and make the entire system more transparent. [19654/15]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I am aware of the proposal by the Irish Refugee Council and Doras Luimní for a one-off scheme to clear all cases in the protection process.

At the outset I should say that I have no plans to introduce such a scheme. The Deputy may be aware that there is a political commitment among EU Member States against any form of process that would grant residence status to persons present in the State without first examining the merits of their individual cases. Broad regularisation programmes are problematic, in particular as they could give rise to unpredictable and very costly impacts across the full range of public and social services.

I have previously acknowledged however that the length of time that many applicants spend in the protection process is a matter that needs to be addressed particularly in light of the sharp increase in asylum application volumes in 2014 and so far in 2015. The Deputy may be aware that an Independent Working Group was set up in October 2014 to recommend to Government what improvements should be made to the protection process, including direct provision and supports to asylum seekers. One of the tasks of the Working Group is to identify improvements to existing arrangements for the processing of protection applications taking account of the Government's intention to legislate for a single application procedure.

The Group began its work in November last under the Chairmanship of retired High Court Judge, Bryan McMahon and its membership is drawn from a range of interests in the international protection area including UNHCR, non-governmental organisations, protection applicants, academia, and relevant Government Departments and Offices. I understand that the Working Group's report to Government will be finalised in the coming weeks.

I have also committed to introducing legislative change in the Protection area to provide for a single application procedure with a view to reducing the length of time applicants spend in the protection process. On 25 March 2015 I published the General Scheme of the International Protection Bill, which has been approved by Government. This is the first step in delivering the Government's undertaking in the Statement of Priorities 2014-2016 to legislate to reduce the length of time protection applicants spend in the system. My objective is to reform the current multi-layered and sequential system which can result in applicants being accommodated in the State's system of Direct Provision for indeterminate periods of time. The single procedure will identify at a much earlier stage those who are in need of international protection and should be granted status and those with no entitlement to stay in the State and who can safely return to their country of origin.

In accordance with the Government decision I have forwarded the General Scheme of the Bill to the Attorney General for the detailed drafting of the legislation which, subject to the approval of the Government at a future time, will be presented to the Oireachtas for enactment into law. My aim is for the legislation to be enacted by the end of this year.

Notwithstanding the deliberations of the Working Group on the Protection process and the future publication of the International Protection Bill, a number of measures have already been taken to address the number of cases on hand in the protection system which are yielding significant results. These include the scheduling of interviews of applicants on Saturdays, the transfer of subsidiary protection application processing to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner in late 2013, the establishment of a legal panel set up to assist the Commissioner with this work, and the appointment of additional members to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal to assist with the processing of appeals.

My Department is also actively considering what other measures can be taken to reduce the number of cases on hand at the leave to remain stage of the process in advance of the introduction of a single application procedure.