History of the Refugee Status Determination Procedure in Ireland
Under the Refugee Act 1996, two independent statutory offices were established in November 2000 to consider applications/appeals for refugee status and to make recommendations to the Minister for Justice and Equality on whether such status should be granted. These two offices are the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC), which considers applications for a declaration as a refugee at first instance and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (RAT) which considers applications for a declaration at appeal stage.
The key statutory responsibilities of the ORAC are to:
- investigate asylum applications and to issue appropriate recommendations to the Minister, and
- investigate applications by refugees to allow family members to enter and reside in the State and report to the Minister on such applications.
Prior to November 2000, asylum applications were determined on a non-statutory basis either prior to December 1997 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or thereafter by the Department of Justice and Equality.
When ORAC was set up in November 2000, there were 9,431 applications awaiting decision at first stage and of these 3,242 were made prior to the year 2000. At the end of 2010, there were only 541 cases awaiting processing in ORAC, and of these only 67 cases were on hand for over 6 months.
The number of applications being made in Ireland has fallen from a high point in 2002 of 11,634, compared with last year when only 1939 asylum applications were received.
Asylum applications are assessed by full time professional caseworkers employed by ORAC and in RAT by part time members who are professional lawyers. Both organisations have received training on various aspects of refugee status determination from UNHCR.
