The fast-tracking of asylum cases considered "manifestly unfounded" carries with it a "serious potential for erroneous decisions", a refugee law expert told a weekend conference in Dublin.
Ireland's definition of a manifestly unfounded asylum claim is unfair to applicants and was criticised by the United Nations when the law was being drafted, said Ms Siobhán Mullally, a law lecturer at University College Cork.
Ms Mullally said the Refugee Act places too much emphasis on the credibility of asylum-seekers, diverting adjudicators' emphasis from the merits of the actual asylum claims.
To test their credibility, asylum-seekers have been asked questions about population sizes and geography of the countries they claim to be fleeing persecution from. One applicant was asked the distance between Cherbourg in France and the Ukrainian city of Kiev, said Ms Mullally.
The number of cases determined as manifestly unfounded at first interview stage rose from about 2 per cent in 1999 to just under 19 per cent in 2000. This fell to 5 per cent last year.
While this drop was welcome, "that kind of fluctuation in itself is very worrying because it highlights the potential for arbitrariness," said Ms Mullally.
Asylum-seekers whose cases are found to be manifestly unfounded after initial interview are dealt with under accelerated, or fast-track, procedures. They are entitled to a written appeal only, instead of the normal oral hearing.
Ms Mullally said this twin-track approach should be replaced by "a single, well resourced asylum determination procedure because there is a serious potential for erroneous decisions".
The conference, organised by the Irish Centre for European Law at TCD, also heard from a barrister that "flawed" assessments of asylum-seekers' credibility had been made in some cases at first interview. Ms Siobhán Stack said such flaws could be overcome if asylum-seekers were given the opportunity to clarify what appeared to be inconsistencies in their statements.
A member of staff from the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, which conducts first stage interviews, pointed out from the floor that it was current policy for case workers to put to applicants any inconsistencies in their stories.
As part of an ongoing internal review of the interview process, "this issue is coming up that if you discover inconsistencies there is a need to put them to the applicant", the staff member added during a question and answers session.
Mr David Costello, principal officer in the asylum policy division of the Department of Justice, said there there were now 700 staff working in the area compared to four in 1996. He had earlier addressed the conference on Ireland's role in the development of a common European asylum policy.