Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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115. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of asylum and immigration cases that are being held up or pending approval while awaiting the judgment of the appeal to the Supreme Court of the Court of Appeal judgment in a case (details supplied); and the status of those persons waiting for decisions dependent on that appeal. [51752/17]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) of my Department that persons seeking permission to remain in the State may do so for a number of reasons to various Divisions of the INIS under both statutory and non-statutory provisions.  As a result, as the Deputy would expect, every case is considered on its own merits in conjunction with the legislation, criteria or guidelines which are directly applicable to the individual case type. 

The issues raised in the court case referred to by the Deputy, which is currently before the Supreme Court, has the potential to generate further sets of legal proceedings and, as such, the INIS deemed it prudent to postpone decision making in certain immigration cases until the matters before the Courts have been finalised.

It is not possible to quantify the precise numbers of such cases as to do so would require the deployment of a disproportionate level of limited resources to the task. However, the Deputy may wish to be aware that the case referred to was heard before the Supreme Court last Thursday (30th November, 2017) and is due to return to that Court early in the new year.