20% drop in number of people seeking asylum

THE number of applications for asylum is expected to fall by about 20% by the end of the year, the Irish Refugee Council (IRC) said yesterday.

Compared to 11,000 asylum seekers in 2002, the figure this year is unlikely to exceed 8,250.

Until the end of November, 7,553 people had applied for asylum at the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner.

IRC chief executive Peter O'Mahony attributed the reduction to a number of factors, including an overall drop on the level of applications for refugee status being documented in industrialised nations.

"However, there is nothing to indicate that there is any matching reduction in the number of people who actually want asylum," said Mr O'Mahony.

"It has just become more difficult for them to get to countries like Ireland," he said.

He said the effect of the landmark Supreme Court judgment earlier this year, which ruled that the justice minister had the power to deport the migrant parents of an Irish citizen child as well as the number of asylum seekers refused entry (a monthly average of over 250) had also contributed to the reduction.

Mr O'Mahony said there was also anecdotal evidence that a certain proportion of immigrants who arrived in Ireland no longer entered the formal asylum process.

Statistics reveal that about 70% of the 1,104 asylum applicant granted refugee status so far in 2003 did so at the appeal stage, while there is also an average backlog of around six months in those waiting to have their cases assessed by the Refugee Applications Commissioner.

However, despite such delays, Mr O'Mahony said there had been a significant improvement in the quality of decision-making by officials involved in processing asylum applications.

Nevertheless, the IRC remains critical of the failure of the Government to make any movements towards establishing a Refugee Advisory Board, as was first promised in 1996.