The Refugee Process

mountainyman

Does anyone know exactly what is involved in th e process of seeking asylum in Ireland?

Also I have heard very large amounts claimed as the fees involved.

This seems to be a highly emotive issue and obe which is (deliberately?) lied about by 'both sides'.

Where could I look to find out the 'facts'.

MM

morbo

The 'facts' are spread across many a website, and even more news papers. In reality, only about 11,000 African nationals have sought asylum in this country to date. Anti-asylum people say the figure is closer to 60,000. Try having a look on wikipedia, or even get in touch with a lecturer in public law in one of the universities that teaches law.

morbo

Also, there is a lot of money to be made by the people that handle the cases. I know of one guy that went from nobody solicitor, to a respected (and ridiculously rich) solicitor parading around the Four Courts in less than 6 years. So if there is allot of money to be made handling the cases, I can only imagine that it is expensive to seek asylum. Having said that, the Government probably pays for the legal fees of the solicitor, not the actual asylum seeker.

mountainyman

Apparently it costs 36K (in total) in fees. I am not sure how this is worked out. 'Both sides' are continually distorting the 'facts'.

MM

morbo

It's politics. Depending on the source, they are embellishing their figures to suit their target audience. Conservatives want them out, so their figures go up; liberals think it's terrible what's happening to them, so their figures go down.

Here’s an interesting thing I came across before. It’s off the point of asylum seekers, but concerns EU economic migrants. One of the chiefs of the Polish police force was being interviewed by an Irish journalist, and he said, since Poland joined the EU, crime rates have plummeted all over Poland. Why is this? It’s because all the criminals are moving to other countries to work in construction or cleaning or something. Coincidently, crime has gone up in most of the countries they have come to. This isn’t Polish bashing, I just thing there should be restrictions on the movement of workers within the EU. Send us your doctors and physicists, but not your criminals!

maidhc

morbo wrote:

I just thing there should be restrictions on the movement of workers within the EU. Send us your doctors and physicists, but not your criminals!

Most of the Irish Criminals are gone to Spain!

(as the Spainish are "less than helpful" when it comes to extradition.)

I'm not sure if there is any evidence that crime is being comitted by non nationals any more so than by Irish people. There is a lot of social welfare fraud going on alright, but this is because the Irish social welfare system finds it difficult to cope with "strange" names. It is still the local scumbags who are likely to break into your car though.

morbo

Not really. My background is in computer science. I was working for a chain of internet cafes in Cork last year, and the only people we had stealing things, breaking things, starting fights, being drunk and disorderly, etc. were Poles (and for some reason Algerians, and people from Togo and Ghana. No other African nations). Not even Czechs or Lithuanians or Slovaks, etc. caused any problems. I’d be minding my own business working on the network, and all of a sudden, someone is swinging a vodka bottle at your head for no reason. Once, two Polish guys literally pulled a PC in half and took the graphics card out of it. They then threatened to kill another person that saw them if he said anything, and left without paying. They are now the proud owners of criminal records. But seriously, what is it about Spain that attracts the scum of the Earth? I can't believe how it is basically 2 countries. You have tourist Spain, and Real Spain. Real Spain is amazing.

johnnyskeleton

mountanyman wrote:

Apparently it costs 36K (in total) in fees. I am not sure how this is worked out. 'Both sides' are continually distorting the 'facts'.

It starts with the Refugee Applications Commissioner, then it can go to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, and from there it can be Judicially Reviewed to the High Court, and possibly to the supreme court. So the costs can definitely rack up.

However, the flipside is that if there is an unsuccessful JR, the applicant's lawyers might not get paid anything.

morbo wrote:

Having said that, the Government probably pays for the legal fees of the solicitor, not the actual asylum seeker.

A lot, probably most, of the fees for the RAC and RAT are paid by the Refugee Legal Service in the Legal Aid Board. Also, the Commissioners and tribunal officers, plus the presenting officers are paid for by the state, as are the costs of running the asylum process generally, and the cost to the gardai/prision service when the applications are unsuccessful.

morbo wrote:

the only people we had stealing things, breaking things, starting fights, being drunk and disorderly, etc. were Poles

Perhaps the Poles are simply better at adopting our customs and culture better than other nationalities. What are the Irish known for all accross the world?

mountainyman

Thanks Johnny,

Morbo I was going to say that it is all a function of gangs of young men being around the place but maybe we get a scummier class of Pole. Though the opposite is my experience.

Spain is weather, Irish bars, extradition and until recently a great place to wash money.

MM

dermot_sheehan

Refugee Application process can be lengthy:
1. Apply for refugee status (this can occur after some time of illegal presence in the state when one is detected by the authorities)
2. Interview and application by refugee application commissioner (RAC)
3. If adverse decision, judicially review it in High Court (of course youre supposed to exhaust your administrative remedies before judicially reviewing an administrative act, but High Court allows applications to review the RAC in practice)
3. High Court rejects application for judicial review, section 5(3)(a) of the Illegal Immigrants (Traficking) Act, 2000 says no appeal to Supreme Court unless leave is granted or on constitutional gounds, apply for leave, leave refused.
4. Administrative appeal to Refugee Appeals Tribunal (RAT)
5. Judicially review decision of RAT, again no appeal to Supreme Court unless leave granted
6. Representations to Minister on why deportation order should not be made (e.g. humanitarian grounds, parent of irish child, etc, etc)
7. Minister makes deportation order, application to judicially review order, again no appeal to supreme court without leave, court refuses to overturn order.
8. Gardai take illegal immigrant into custody pending deportation, application made to High Court for habeas corpus under Article 40.4 of the Constitution. Application denied, right of appeal to Supreme Court, but unless High Court grants an injunction forbidding removal from state until appeal is heard issue would likely be moot as immigrant would be removed from the state and no longer be in state custody by time case gets to supreme court.


as you can see there are a great many legal hurdles in dealing with an asylum case, no idea what the costs would add up to.

Also, Re: Spain, spain is actually an easy country to seek extradition from now due to the European Arrest Warrant. An irish court merely needs to issue a warrant, have it translated and sent to the judicial authorities in spain. Dual-Criminalilty doesn't even have to be proved for the offences listed in the framework decision.

maidhc

gabhain7 wrote:

Also, Re: Spain, spain is actually an easy country to seek extradition from now due to the European Arrest Warrant. An irish court merely needs to issue a warrant, have it translated and sent to the judicial authorities in spain. Dual-Criminalilty doesn't even have to be proved for the offences listed in the framework decision.

So the theory goes....

The problem is that the Spanish authorities don't really care.

sickofwaxing

Has anyone ever heard of a scam whereby immigrants give their child's age as younger than it actually is in order to get more child benefit (i.e. more years before they turn 18)? Apparently it's very common...