Asylum-seekers are being refused State-funded legal aid at a crucial final stage of their applications for refugee status due to staff shortages at the Refugee Legal Service.
Refugee and human rights groups say they are angered and concerned at the move, which they claim amounts to a denial of justice for asylum-seekers.
Their concerns centre on a recent decision to curtail the services offered by staff at the Refugee Legal Service, a specialist branch of the Legal Aid Board. The board is a State body which provides legal aid and advice to people on low incomes.
The Legal Aid Board has stopped funding legal services for asylum-seekers whose appeals against deportations have been rejected and who are seeking to challenge that decision by a judicial review in the High Court.
The board must issue legal aid certificates to solicitors in the Refugee Legal Service before they can hire a barrister to take a judicial review. Since the end of last month, the board has stopped issuing such certificates because the Refugee Legal Service does not have sufficient staff to handle the cases.
This means asylum-seekers who have lost their appeals against deportations would have to hire private practitioners, which could cost thousands of pounds. Since last year, asylum-seekers have 14 days in which to seek leave for judicial review, compared with up to six months for non-asylum-seekers.
The chief executive of the Legal Aid Board, Mr Frank Goodman, said the board would be able to review its position on judicial reviews at the end of this week or early next week. It has a new agreement with the Bar Council which will allow barristers to handle asylum appeals and this would free up resources at the Refugee Legal Service, he added.
Mr Goodman said the board was continuing to fund cases taken by asylum-seekers up until the judicial review stage, and there were no waiting lists for such services, he said.
He was "obviously concerned" about the situation, but the board had to prioritise matters and he was satisfied asylum-seekers were able to access services from private solicitors.
Mr Goodman said staffing levels at the Refugee Legal Service would be increased from 56 to 140 by next June and it was also operating from an additional premises. "We have a very substantial service. We will spend £7.7 million on legal aid for asylum-seekers this year," he added.
However, the Irish Refugee Council said the provision of State-funded legal aid for asylum-seekers was "wholly insufficient". The council's legal officer, Mr Dug Cubie, said: "Judicial review is the final check to ensure that a full and fair hearing of an asylum-seeker's case has been made. The two week time limit for seeking leave for judicial review has reduced that right. . .effectively the right to take a judicial review is slowly being restricted and restricted and therefore it's not a right at all."
Mr Donncha O'Connell, of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, said the failure to provide legal aid for judicial review proceedings was a substantive denial of due process. "This is shameful and scandalous and cannot be justified by mealy-mouthed excuses," he said.
The Free Legal Advice Centres, which monitors the provision of legal aid services, claimed the board was breaching its statutory duties.