The number of asylum applicants this year was the highest to date, with 11,530 claims for refugee status.
Provisional figures from the Department of Justice for the year to yesterday show an increase on 2001 of 1,205 asylum applicants. The previous highest annual total was in 2000, when 10,938 applications were lodged.
Nigerian nationals accounted for about a third of refugee applicants last year, with Romanians some 14 per cent, a trend which is broadly consistent with 2001.
Around one in 10 applicants processed this year were granted refugee status after their first-stage interview. Asylum-seekers recognised as refugees fleeing persecution are allowed to live permanently and work in the State with the same rights as citizens.
Processing has speeded up significantly in recent years, with additional staff and resources made available to clear a backlog which began to build up in the late 1990s.
The Refugee Applications Commissioner, Ms Berenice O'Neill, said all new applicants were offered first-stage interviews within three months of arrival, with decisions generally issued by her office within another month. People whose asylum claim is not successful after the first interviews can appeal to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.
"There's no backlog anywhere of any category of applicant other than those who we can't process due to medical problems or other problems," Ms O'Neill told The Irish Times.
She said only 45 per cent of people scheduled for interview attended, with the other 55 per cent either not attending the interview or withdrawing their applications.
"If you are interested in having your application processed you would imagine you would be engaged and turn up for interview," she added.
"If you're not engaged, you are abusing the process.Our experience to date shows that people who want asylum will take part. Lots of people actually withdraw, and having Irish-born children is by far the biggest reason for this."
Figures recently released in the Dáil show that from 1996 to November 2002 some 7,732 people, all current or former asylum-seekers, were granted leave to remain in Ireland on the basis of having an Irish-born child. Parents of children born in Ireland, who are automatically Irish citizens, are generally granted residency here.
Ms O'Neill said she had hired in-house lawyers to carry out research on the countries of origin of asylum applicants, who come from some 130 different states, and had just set up an internal quality assurance unit.
The Refugee Applications Commission deals with between 30 and 100-plus applicants daily, with about 80 per cent of all claimants first making themselves known to the authorities in the city-centre offices of the commission, she said.
"We are trying to maximise the efficiency of the organisation and deepen the quality of our processes by putting a lot of resources into central support," said Ms O'Neill. "We have about 76 case workers and higher executive officers who sign off on cases. It's a difficult job for case workers and we recognize that, and they do it very well."