The amount spent by the Department of Justice on dealing with the increasing backlog of applications from asylum-seekers for refugee status has risen dramatically from £370,000 last year to nearly £4.17 million this year. This does not include costs incurred by other government departments.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, told the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights that there had been "a rate of arrival of new applicants at an average in excess of 100 per week in the year to date and a backlog which has almost trebled in the past 12 months".
Up to the end of May there were 2,175 applications for asylum, compared to 3,883 in the whole of last year. Mr O'Donoghue said that following the sanction of 72 extra staff, including 25 retired civil servants, in February, the "large-scale processing" of asylum applications had begun early last month.
The work of processing the applications would move soon to a `one stop shop' for asylum seekers in Mount Street in Dublin. This would house a number of facilities: the Department of Justice's own offices for receiving, interviewing and hearing the appeals of applicants; the Eastern Health Board's refugee unit, with medical screening; a United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) documentation centre; and a proposed refugee legal centre.
Mr O'Donoghue said his Department had sought tenders from lawyers to provide an independent refugee legal service, which would provide free legal advice and representation for asylum-seekers. Mr O'Donoghue rejected a call from Mr Pat Upton TD of Labour and Ms Liz McManus TD of Democratic Left to grant temporary work permits to allow asylum seekers who had been waiting for more than six months to seek work.
Mr Upton said at least this "would take them out of the welfare system and allow them to contribute to the country." Ms McManus said "the single most widespread characteristic" of the asylum seekers she knew was that "they want to work and not to live off the State."
However Mr O'Donoghue said to grant work permits to people who might eventually be "found to be illegal immigrants" would "surely confer a legitimacy on their status in the State they would not merit."