Judge says asylum system serves neither the State nor asylum-seekers

A Supreme Court judge says our system of processing asylum applications serves neither asylum-seekers not the State and is “costly”, “inefficient”, and “counter-productive in its effect”.

While the system has meant “significant” costs for the State, the human cost is “not so easily conveyed”, Mr Justice John MacMenamin said yesterday.

The bifurcated system of separate applications for asylum and subsidiary protection lead to “vast” litigation here along with references to the European courts, he said. It was “hard to understand” the logic of having lower thresholds for judicial review of subsidiary protection decisions than for asylum applications.