Integration boss hits back at Ahern’s ‘90% unfounded’ asylum claim

THE head of Integrating Ireland has hit back at Justice Minister Dermot Ahern’s claim that 90% of asylum claims are “unfounded”.

Aki Stavrou, director of the independent network which supports immigrants and refugees, said the use of the word unfounded, as opposed to rejected, was dangerous and sent out the perception all asylum-seekers were trying to con the system.

“For the minister to use the word, unfounded, is dangerous. It seems to say the claims have no legal basis whatsoever and, while this might apply to some applications, to give the impression nine out of 10 have no legal basis is pre-empting due process.”

Ireland consistently has one of the highest rates of refusal in the European Union for asylum-seekers.

Currently, there are approximately 7,000 asylum-seekers at various stages of the application process in the system. Almost 5,000 are at first instance and appeal stage.

Fine Gael’s Denis Naughton said, despite improvements to the system, there was still a “significant backlog” and applications were taking a long time. He said a substantial part of the delay in processing asylum applications results from delays in processing leave to remain applications.

“While I accept they are complex, based on the current rate of processing, it would take approximately five years to clear the existing backlog of such applications. Is the minister of the view that this is unacceptable, particularly in light of the fact that €800 per week is spent on the court, accommodation, processing and deportation costs of each asylum applicant?”

“Would it not make sense to allocate additional resources to process the leave to remain applications in order that people who are eligible for refugee status will be granted it as quickly as possible and that those who are deemed not to be eligible will be returned to their home countries as soon as possible?”

According to the minister, there are increasing levels of abuse of the asylum process, and a growing complexity of cases from a mix of over 100 countries, such as Nigeria, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He said the average monthly application figure to the end of 2003 was between 830 and 840 and more recently, in January, it was 254. This decrease suggested many asylum seekers were coming for economic rather than asylum reasons.