Refugee applications taking longer despite review recommendations
The time it takes to process refugee applications doubled from 15 to 30 weeks on average last year, despite a series of recommendations to speed up the system.
The number of cases waiting at the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner also more than trebled to 2,582 during that time.
Retired High Court Judge Bryan McMahon said that he is disappointed that little has changed in the system since the first fundamental review of Direct Provision was carried out a year ago.
Around 5,000 people are currently living in direct provision – a quarter of those are children.
The national director of the Jesuit Refugee Service, Eugene Quinn, said that a series of recommendations to speed up processing have not been properly implemented.
"The decision-making process at the initial stage is lengthening - so it's doubling before the office of the Refugee Applications Commissioners, and increasing substantially before the tribunal so that the time for the initial decision has increased from an average processing time of 15 months to two years, but in individual cases may be substantially longer," he said.
"So that's a long way away form this goal of 12 months, and the key issue here is resources."
