JUST UNDER 6,000 applications for asylum have been withdrawn since changes were introduced in immigration law five years ago.
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said that 5,799 asylum applications had been withdrawn including 1,777 applications last year and a further 607 up to the end of October this year.
In the same five-year period, 8,486 deportation orders were issued and 2,118 implemented. The largest number of deportations occurred in the first two years of the new rules with 591 deported in 2003 and 599 the following year. To date this year 95 have been deported, including people whose asylum application failed. In the period from 2004 until this year a total of 1,019 people were moved to the country where they first entered the EU. He said "in the region of 400" applications for long-term residency were being "finalised" every month.
The 2003 Immigration Act obliged applicants to "actively pursue their asylum applications and co-operate at all times with the processing agencies or face having their applications deemed withdrawn", Mr Ahern said.
Mr Ahern told Fine Gael TD Denis Naughten in a written parliamentary reply that the most common reason for applications to be withdrawn was a failure to attend for interview by the office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner "without reasonable cause", failure to co-operate with the commissioner or failure to notify a change of address. Once an application is withdrawn the asylum seeker faces deportation.
In a separate parliamentary question Labour justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte queried the average time taken to process applications for residency and claimed that "applications received in January 2007 are only now being processed".
The Minister said the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service aimed to provide improved customer service and "incrementally an improvement in processing times".
