Laois/Offaly Cllr. Aidan Mullins has said that the appeals process for failed asylum seekers is “flawed” and “unmanageable”.
Mullins said that last year 779 failed asylum claimants had lodged appeals in the lHigh Court according to the Annual Report of the Courts Service of Ireland.
The report states that “In relation to notable case types, the increase in new asylum cases appears to be linked to an increase in decisions by the Department of Justice in asylum and citizenship applications. Judicial Review applications significantly exceed recent years, including the last pre- covid year.”
Speaking to Gript, the former Sinn Féin member said that the number represents “a 132% on the previous year.”
Mullins recently left Sinn Féin saying he was “being silenced” on immigration and other issues.
“It just indicates to me how flawed and how unmanageable the system is at the moment” he said, adding, “the whole appeal system is farcical, because if the IPO refuse an applicant, they can then go to the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT).”
“It can take six to eight months to process those appeals and they get free legal aid during that process” he said adding, “if they fail there, they can then go to the High Court with the free legal aid all the time, and then in the interim can walk away here after six months,”.
Mullins said this “ just prolongs the whole process before this final decision is made whether they can remain or whether to get status.”
Speaking of the top countries represented in Ireland’s growing numbers of asylum claimants, Mullins said that he thought it was “accepted by everybody” that “obviously they’re not all genuine asylum seekers or not genuine refugees,” but that the “majority” are “economic migrants”.
Mullins said, “I think the system should be simplified and it should be fast tracked, because even for the genuine asylum seekers, they can be in the system for years without getting the final result or final decision.”
He said that the system needed “a major overhaul from top to bottom”
Mullins said that he was aware that the Department of Integration “is attempting to streamline it more, but for the moment, it’s farcical from top to bottom,”.
Mullins said that Jordanian nationals with pre-clearance E-visas for the UK were travelling to Ireland and claiming asylum here.
“ What we’re finding here in Ireland is hundreds of Jordanians are coming here through the north from the UK and presenting as asylum seekers. Now, we know they’re economic migrants, but the system allows them to come in from the UK or to have a visa and present here as an asylum applicant, so they can be put up in accommodation.”
He said this showed how “loose” and “open to abuse” the system is.
Mullins said he believes the UK wishes to “drop” this E-visa system “sometime in early October” saying the visa was “a joke” and “being abused”.
“The system isn’t being abused from top to bottom,” he added.
He said that “50% of all the applications through the IPO are coming from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Georgia” pointing to the fact that Georgia is on the list of designated ‘safe countries’.
He said that although Nigeria has issues with Islamist groups like Boko Haram that he was of the view that not all of the country is affected by such issues.
Mullins said he has “no issue with the economic migrants” but added that these “can’t come over here as an economic migrant, pretending to be an asylum seeker, and get all the benefits and accommodation and free legal aid and free health services. “
“That’s where I find the system has been abused,” he said.
As Gript previously reported, the Department of Justice confirmed that appeals of decisions to refuse asylum are increasingly going undefended by its representatives at the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT), backing up claims made to Gript by a source with extensive knowledge of the tribunal’s operation.
As a result, the source claimed that the number of applicants granted asylum upon appeal has risen “substantially” in recent years, particularly from ‘safe countries of origin’ such as Albania and South Africa, and from Nigeria, on account of the large number of appeals coming from that country.
The IPAT is an independent body exercising a quasi-judicial function that was established in December 2016. It determines appeals from first instance decisions in relation to a variety of migration-related categories, such as international protection and transfer orders under the Dublin III Regulation.
Initially claiming that the Minister of Justice does not defend International Protection claims at the IPAT as described by Gript in a query, the Department said in response to a follow up question that as of early October 2023, “a new process began under which presenting officers were not automatically assigned to all oral international protection appeals concerning applicants from Safe Countries”.
The Minister for Justice previously told Gript that there was “no need” for the presence of a presiding officer at “simple” cases.