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Minister for Justice Michael McDowell:
I am advised by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner
that there are no applications awaiting a first instance determination
with an application date prior to 1 January 2001. While the Refugee
Appeals Tribunal has advised that there are no appeals with it with an
appeal date prior to 1 January 2001, there are 11 appeals in the RAT
with an application date prior to 1 January 2001. In addition, there are
two cases in the ministerial decisions unit regarding applications prior
to 1 January 2001 awaiting issue of a decision letter. For a variety of
reasons, there will always be some applications and appeals which take
significantly longer than the average to complete which can arise for
reasons such as judicial review proceedings.
I wish to acknowledge the very significant
progress made by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and
the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, and their respective staff, in addressing
both the volume of cases on hands in both ORAC and RAT as well as the
timescales involved in bringing a case to its conclusion. At the end of
February 2006 there were 2,409 cases on hands at ORAC and RAT as
compared to some 6,930 cases in January 2004 and 3,629 in January 2005.
The number of cases in each of the asylum agencies over six months was
470 at the end of February 2006 compared to some 1,057 in January 2005,
2,910 cases in January 2004 and some 6,500 in September 2001.
There is continued momentum in processing timescales for asylum
applications with new arrangements for speedier processing of
prioritised asylum applications, from nationals of Nigeria, Romania,
Bulgaria, Croatia and South Africa, introduced from January 2005 with a
17 working days processing time at first instance in ORAC and 15 working
days at appeals stage in RAT. Currently, almost 40% of total
applications fall into the prioritised category.
With effect from 1 November 2005, all applicants for asylum are notified
of their interview date by the Office of the Refugee Applications
Commissioner at the time they make their application. The interview
appointment is normally within 20 working days of application. However,
for those applicants within the prioritised category, interviews in ORAC
are held, more speedily, within nine to 12 days. |
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