Broken Asylum System - €1.4 million per application

Papad

A total of €2.26billion has been spent processing asylum claims and accommodating asylum seekers in the past seven years.

State-provided accommodation are costing the taxpayer over €13,700 per applicant every year in accommodation and social welfare alone.

A total of €2.26billion has been spent processing asylum claims and accommodating asylum seekers in the past seven years.

These are some of the numbers that appeared in the Irish Times today. Now that we finally have some numbers, is it not time to address this festering problem?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0722/breaking63.htm

Fratton Fred

how?

ei.sdraob

if these people were allowed to work and not made site on welfare ...


btw how much did US spend on Irish refugees over that last few hundred years, ahem ahem

Papad

Fratton Fred wrote: »

how?

I am not American Indian, so your question needs to be more substantive.

ei.sdraob wrote:

btw how much did US spend on Irish refugees over that last few hundred years, ahem ahem

From what I can gather, NOTHING. But I note the deflection from the issue at hand.

topper75

Dogs in the street knew we had a problem.

However, even so, that figure seems awful high - what were the drivers behind that?

Admin? Accomm? Deportation? or sheer volume of applicants? Any breakdown?

Whole thing was a mystery to me all the time. We have obligations under UN membership but why were so many of these applicants from countries that aren't near us and from people who could clearly have claimed in another country en route to Ireland. If you are fleeing your homeland in fear of your life, passing through France and the UK to get here suggests a bogus asylum claim to me.

Fratton Fred

You asked a question

Papad wrote: »

Now that we finally have some numbers, is it not time to address this festering problem?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0722/breaking63.htm

I asked

Fratton Fred wrote: »

how?

meaning, maybe you could come up with a suggestion on how we can address this festering problem

you replied with

Papad wrote: »

I am not American Indian, so your question needs to be more substantive.

which suggest to me that although you are outraged by these figures, you have not thought through the issue at hand.

Papad

topper75 wrote: »

Whole thing was a mystery to me all the time.................. If you are fleeing your homeland in fear of your life, passing through France and the UK to get here suggests a bogus asylum claim to me.

I think it was designed to be a mystery. The costs were hidden for obvious reasons. Your last statement also represents part of the problem. Ireland can be fair in accepting legitimate asylum seekers, who have first been processed in the first European country they enter.

What we need is accountability, which we are not seeing. Maybe we should model our asylum process on the new Dutch model e.g. Asylum seekers arriving in the Netherlands via another EU country are not entitled to accommodation in reception centres.

Other ideas: There should be a waiting period after a person is granted asylum, where it is not possible to receive the maximum social welfare benefits (so that there will be concerted efforts to find work) and immediate deportation after the conviction of a criminal offense.

sceptre

You know it'd be, like, cool if you weren't all indulging in a penis size contest in this thread. Stop waving it around, it's unseemly. Pretend this is a discussion forum, that's what I like to do.

Eight years is too long for any application to be processed. Shorten it by a lot and we save lots of money. I'll let you guys talk about how to do that if you want to, I'll just be happier if you all act like adults while you're doing it.

topper75 wrote: »

Whole thing was a mystery to me all the time. We have obligations under UN membership but why were so many of these applicants from countries that aren't near us and from people who could clearly have claimed in another country en route to Ireland. If you are fleeing your homeland in fear of your life, passing through France and the UK to get here suggests a bogus asylum claim to me.

I'd suggest reading the more recent EU regulations on asylum. There's a really nice summary under the Politics charter thread (it's the third post). You're missing a few pertinent facts and the thread is likely to be far better for you and everyone else if you read that post (or the regulations, but the post is faster)


Adults people, please. I'll be blunt: I will smite you if you're not adult-like. Asylum threads tend to bring out the little idiot hidden inside so many people but this isn't the playground zone, don't treat it as though it is.

Fratton Fred

Papad wrote: »

I think it was designed to be a mystery. The costs were hidden for obvious reasons. Your last statement also represents part of the problem. Ireland can be fair in accepting legitimate asylum seekers, who have first been processed in the first European country they enter.

What we need is accountability, which we are not seeing. Maybe we should model our asylum process on the new Dutch model e.g. Asylum seekers arriving in the Netherlands via another EU country are not entitled to accommodation in reception centres.

Other ideas: There should be a waiting period after a person is granted asylum, where it is not possible to receive the maximum social welfare benefits (so that there will be concerted efforts to find work) and immediate deportation after the conviction of a criminal offense.

Sceptre summed it up nicely. Reduce the time to process an applicant and you cut the cost. asylum seekers have to be treated as genuine until proven otherwise, however, they are not yet accepted into the country, so providing them with benefits is the only option the government has. They are not legally entitled to work and if you gave them that right, then why not just abolish any immigrations rules the country has.

I would hazard a guess and say that the cost of welfare tpe benefits are only part of the problem, the biggest element of the cost I would suggest is the cost of the civil servants processing the claim and investigating the application. If this can be done quicker, then it stands to reason that the overall cost can be reduced.

ei.sdraob

I think it was discussed in another parallel thread

why does it take 3years+ for naturalization process when it takes 3months across the irish sea?

im sure assylum applications has same lame processing time while the bureaucrats (who have nice wages and pensions) shuffle paper around in the dept. of justice

the problem is not immigration it the bloat in a certain sector, in other EU countries they manage just fine

deadhead13

Asylum applications for the 7 years in question

2002 11,634
2003 7,900
2004 4,766
2005 4,323
2006 4,314
2007 3,985
2008 3,866

These are applications, the number that are sucessful going on last years figures are about 1 in 4. The immigation, residence and protection bill 2008 was drafted to address the question of the time taken and cost of the application process.

thebman

Maybe they could get one of those computer type things I've been hearing about to help process them there applications :P

I think I found the problem.

Papad

You would have to wonder why there isn't outrage when there is an estimate of €1.4 Million per asylum applicant. Maybe it's still a taboo subject "You can't talk about black babies like that". (I know not all applicants are black).

Some skeptics would say: "Let's do this. Give them half a million each when they first apply, and we (the tax payers) will be making out like bandits".

The unfortunate assumption in all of this, because of past fraud, is that the majority of these cases are bogus to begin with. And I say that with a heavy heart thinking about genuine cases who cannot reach our shores and deserve our protection.

sceptre

Papad wrote: »

You would have to wonder why there isn't outrage when there is an estimate of €1.4 Million per asylum applicant. Maybe it's still a taboo subject "You can't talk about black babies like that". (I know not all applicants are black).

Maybe there's an overly PC atmosphere. Having said that, I've my doubts given the complaints I've heard on some city streets which don't hold back on slating someone's colour, creed or nationality. Plus people here feeling free to take a side on immigration issues in general and I doubt that all of them are mere keyboard warriors who hide their opinions in person.

1.4 million per application is nuts if 1.4 million is accurate. Seriously, nuts.

But I'm getting a few different figures depending on what I divide by what and at least one result appears to be 10% of that but I'm a bit dozey at the moment (blood donation trip) so maybe I'm making a pig's ear of it.

Assuming the figure of €13700 per year (stated in the article) is accurate and the processing time of 7 years is accurate, that's a complete state cost of €95,900 over the seven years per person. Ignore the rights or wrongs of that for a moment. If the total is 1.4 million per person, that means that legal fees and office admin and paperclips amount to €1,304,100 per application. That seems a bit nutty, doesn't it? Does anyone think that this sounds wrong in the incorrect sense rather than the "like, so wrong, man" sense?

I'd honestly like to see verification of this total of 2.26 billion euros as I can't make it fit - OK, 300 million per year is 2.1 billion over 7 years (let's ignore that it says "since 2002", which would be six years). 300 million divided by the current total of 14131 people (ignoring that the number is decreasing) is €21,229 per year, which sort of half adds up but I can't make 1.4 million per person or anywhere near it then (21229*7 is about 150,000 per person over the 7 years expected to wait).

On the other hand, if the total figure of 2.26 billion euros is correct, I'd love to see where it's going as I still can't make it add up.

Of course, you can still argue that €150,000 per application is too high and it would still be too high in my opinion if that was the figure. And again, the key appears to be the seven year wait, which is nuts anyway.

I'm not advancing the case for a shorter wait before the decision by the way, I reckon I don't have to as it's obvious, but I would really appreciate it if anyone could make all the figures add up. Because with my currently hazy head, I can't.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Zambia

At 1.4 Millon a head imagine the internment camp I cold hearted f**ker like me could build.

Application -> Internment -> Processing -> Decision -> Deportation Or integration

sovtek

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I would hazard a guess and say that the cost of welfare tpe benefits are only part of the problem, the biggest element of the cost I would suggest is the cost of the civil servants processing the claim and investigating the application. If this can be done quicker, then it stands to reason that the overall cost can be reduced.

My understanding of the cost is mostly from cases having to be taken to the high court because the INIS refuses ALL cases initially and forces everyone to appeal.
All cases should be treated as legitimate untill proven otherwise but the INIS has turned it on its head.

topper75

sovtek wrote: »

All cases should be treated as legitimate untill proven otherwise but the INIS has turned it on its head.

What do you mean by this? That all asylum seekers should be just told - off you go now - you're a refugee. And THEN their file gets looked at by INIS?

siobhank

they are working on it.
Problem is that the appeals aren't being heard quick enough which led to a huge backlog and increase of people hanging out in the hostels waiting on their appeals being added to the new influx etc etc
They have hired 40 lawyers to clear up this backlog of appeals. Once the appeal is heard, all refusals are then moved closer to deportation channels and so on so the system is beginning to start flowing again. It will take a few months.
Then of course the hostels will return to the transient numbers and as asylum applicants are steadily decreasing by year it should cost the State a lot less in the future.

sovtek

topper75 wrote: »

What do you mean by this? That all asylum seekers should be just told - off you go now - you're a refugee. And THEN their file gets looked at by INIS?

:rolleyes:

opo

sovtek wrote: »

My understanding of the cost is mostly from cases having to be taken to the high court because the INIS refuses ALL cases initially and forces everyone to appeal.
All cases should be treated as legitimate untill proven otherwise but the INIS has turned it on its head.

Absolute rubbish.

Perhaps you have not realised that noone appeals a succesfull application in the first instance and secondly, there is an appeal mechanism.

It is that mechanism that comes into play before the courts ever get involved.

It is the legal system that is being rampantly abused and it is the legal system that is ramping up the delays and the costs.

And it is a legal problem that must and will be sorted out. And not one less person will be granted refugee status for it.

ParkRunner

http://www.courts.ie/legaldiary.nsf/a29e83d32296b62f80256c590060acda/576f63ef38b4b81f802575fb002f9b8a?OpenDocument

Today's asylum High Court list of the number of decisions challenged in the asylum process which are just awaiting a hearing date in Court. This to some extent explains the huge cost in having to defend each and every case and the inevitable delays in bringing files to a final conclusion. The solicitors are going after the State in any way they can with no conveyancing work or personal injuries cases anymore

pearcider

Today's asylum High Court list of the number of decisions challenged in the asylum process which are just awaiting a hearing date in Court. This to some extent explains the huge cost in having to defend each and every case and the inevitable delays in bringing files to a final conclusion. The solicitors are going after the State in any way they can with no conveyancing work or personal injuries cases anymore

Nail on head. The sad fact is most of the money is going on legal fees. :rolleyes:

Sizzler

When you see cases like this you can see why the numbers are so high :rolleyes:

Absolutely ridiculous stuff.

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/euro152k--the-bill-for-deporting-just-one-man-1832411.html

wrote:

By Cormac Looney


Tuesday July 21 2009

The state has spent €152,000 deporting just one illegal immigrant to Ghana.

This massive six-figure bill was revealed by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, who confirmed it was the biggest single spend for one individual's deportation last year.

The man was deported from Dublin to Ghana, in west Africa -- escorted by gardai -- on March 11, 2008, at a cost to the taxpayer of €151,900.

But the actual cost of the deportation is likely to be even higher, because the sum does not include garda overtime or subsistence payments, which have not been disclosed.

The Ghanaian deportation cost was 26 times the average cost of deporting an illegal from Ireland last year, which stood at €5,758, according to new figures. In total, 161 deportation orders were executed last year.

Details of the highest cost of a single deportation case to date this year have also been released. A man was transported to Georgia on March 27 last at a cost of €35,888.

This figure was 13 times the average €2,629 it cost to export an illegal immigrant or failed asylum applicant from the country this year.


Halved

The cost of deporting an individual has halved over the past 12 months, but the numbers set to be deported from Ireland this year are likely to top 200, up on last year's 161, according to the new figures.

Deportation orders are put in place to remove individuals from the State if they are discovered to have been illegal immigrants or if their asylum applications have been refused. Most cases processed involve those who have applied for asylum and failed to obtain it.

The deportations have been carried out on both charter and commercial flights, and the figures include the cost of deporting the individual and the travel cost of the garda or gardai who must accompany them.

The officers are stationed with the Garda National Immigration Bureau.

The most recent deportation occurred just over a fortnight ago when 32 failed asylum-seekers were deported to Nigeria.

The group of men, women and children were put on a chartered plane that had arrived in Dublin from Stansted in London. One of those deported was a convicted drug dealer.

opo

Sizzler wrote: »

When you see cases like this you can see why the numbers are so high :rolleyes:

Absolutely ridiculous stuff.

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/euro152k--the-bill-for-deporting-just-one-man-1832411.html

Frankly, focusing exclusively on the cost of removing indiduals with no right or reason to be here and who beligerantly resist all attempts to leave, is completely missing the point.

Sizzler

opo wrote: »

Frankly, focusing exclusively on the cost of removing indiduals with no right or reason to be here and who beligerantly resist all attempts to leave, is completely missing the point.

Frankly, trying to detract from published numbers for costs in respect of the failure of the collective asylum "system" is missing the point.

djpbarry

Sizzler wrote: »

When you see cases like this you can see why the numbers are so high :rolleyes:

Absolutely ridiculous stuff.

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/euro152k--the-bill-for-deporting-just-one-man-1832411.html

I've only glanced over the article, but it doesn't seem to state that the individual in question was a failed asylum seeker? Seems he was an illegal immigrant?

Sizzler

djpbarry wrote: »

I've only glanced over the article, but it doesn't seem to state that the individual in question was a failed asylum seeker? Seems he was an illegal immigrant?

Its implied imho.

Its fair to say if he was randomly identified on the street and had no right to be here then he would apply for asylum post haste.

Maybe fire off an email to Berties bro for clarification!

opo

djpbarry wrote: »

I've only glanced over the article, but it doesn't seem to state that the individual in question was a failed asylum seeker? Seems he was an illegal immigrant?

You may well be right. In which case, the costs would be in addition to the money squandering asylum seeking debacle.

Victor

Zambia232 wrote: »

At 1.4 Millon a head

Its not. Its 40,000 applications over the last 7 years.

€2.26billion / 40,000 = €56,500

walrusgumble

ei.sdraob wrote: »

if these people were allowed to work and not made site on welfare ...


btw how much did US spend on Irish refugees over that last few hundred years, ahem ahem

the same could be asked about how much the US spent on german, french and chinese "refugees".

I take it that you are aware of what refugee/ asylum is? i take it you are aware that its were one applies for "protection" or refuge because their country of origin is not safe, and one has being persecuted. refugee is not, nor has it ever being about being a module to allow economic migrants in.

please don't confuse asylum / refugee with economic emigration/immigration.