Ms Berenice O'Neill, the Refugee Applications Commissioner, will manage 149 staff who will determine all asylum applications under new procedures in the Act. Photograph: Frank Miller
A newly-appointed commissioner, who took charge this week of hearing claims for refugee status, has said she wants to implement a system which is fair and withstands scrutiny.
Ms Berenice O'Neill said she hoped that most, if not all, people in need of protection as refugees would be granted this status after their initial interview by officials.
Currently, about 25 per cent of asylum-seekers denied refugee status after this initial interview are subsequently granted such status on appeal.
Asylum-seekers are people who claim protection from the State and recognition as refugees on the basis that they are fleeing persecution on grounds including race, religion or membership of a social group.
If granted refugee status, they can work and access medical care, education and training in the State on the same basis as Irish citizens. If refused, they can be deported.
Ms O'Neill's position as the independent Refugee Applications Commissioner is created in the Refugee Act, 1996, which came into force last Monday. Before her appointment she was the head of the Department of Justice's Directorate for Asylum Support Services.
Ms O'Neill will manage 149 staff who will determine all asylum applications under new procedures set out in the Act. She said staff numbers would increase to 313 by February, with additional staff also sanctioned to help reduce the backlog of about 13,000 cases.
The asylum decision-making process has been strongly criticised in the past year as falling short of international legal standards. Last January Mr Peter Finlay, the longest-serving barrister hearing independent appeals from people whose asylum applications had been rejected, resigned after voicing strong criticism of the entire asylum process.
A study in September by the Irish Refugee Council made 52 recommendations aimed at improving the asylum assessment procedure.
Ms O'Neill said she was not responsible for the system which was criticised in the past and did not intend to comment on these criticisms. She was impressed by the motivation and enthusiasm of her staff who had received extensive training in human rights law, interview skills and information on the countries of origin of asylum-seekers.
"The key thing about the post is that it is setting out an independent office to examine claims for asylum that is independent of political scenes," she said. "What I want to do is put in place a system that will stand up to any scrutiny, that is fair and respects the dignity of the people and their right to claim asylum.
"The Government has put in place this office to determine their claims, and it's our remit to do it with respect as quickly as possible. An efficient and fair system is what we are talking about."
The target time for processing applications was six months, she said. Currently, asylum-seekers can wait for 18 months or more for decisions on their claims for refugee status. Ms O'Neill said cases which were manifestly wellor ill-founded were being handled with priority and could be processed within three months.
She said 25 per cent of the interviews her staff would carry out would come from the backlog of applicants dating back to claims originally made in August 1999. New applicants would account for the remaining 75 per cent of people called for interview.
"I would hope that I would recognise most if not all those in need of protection at the first-instance interview. If they appeal and it succeeds I would like to learn how we can improve our first-instance processes."
Ms O'Neill said very few asylum-seekers availed of their entitlement to legal advice before their first interview, and her office would continue to encourage them to do so. She said she would like to have a point of contact set up in her office for the Refugee Legal Service, which is free.
She said Romanians, Nigerians and Czechs were the top three nationalities of asylum-seekers in Ireland at the moment, accounting for more than half of the 9,080 applicants this year until the end of last month.
Ms O'Neill said it was very important not to assume automatically that because people were from a particular country they were less likely to be refugees. She said it would be stressed to her staff that they must not let a person in need of protection as a refugee slip through the net.
The Act also introduces new powers to detain and fingerprint asylum-seekers, and prohibits them from being identified by the media without their consent and that of the Minister for Justice, which shall not be "unreasonably withheld".
The National Union of Journalists is seeking a meeting with the Minister about the provision, which it says is aimed at protecting civil liberties but is misguided in that it is open to political abuse.