New proposed legislation could see the processing time for asylum seekers reduced to just three months if passed.

This would mark a significant decrease from the current average of 18 months.

It would also restrict oral hearings and see the introduction of a new state body with responsibility for appeals.

Meanwhile, officers would be given new powers to issue deportations without sign-off from the Minister.

Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan told The Hard Shoulder that his proposal to draft a new asylum law was approved by Government today.

“The central purpose of the legislation I’m introducing is to speed up the process,” he said.

“Under it, there’ll be a requirement that the processing of any application for asylum, the determination of that application and indeed the appeal of the application from the first instance, all those processes must be concluded within a period of three months.

“That’s if you’re applying under what’s referred to as the asylum border procedure - but if it’s a standard procedure, six months.”

According to Minister O’Callaghan, most applications will come in under the asylum border procedure and so will be processed within three months.

Oral hearings

He also said that oral hearings for appeals will be restricted.

“Obviously at first instance when you’re applying for asylum, it’s all done by way of oral hearing,” he said.

“You set out your narrative, it’s listened to, it’s recorded, a transcript is produced.

“But when it gets to an appeal process under the new law that I’ll be introducing, you won’t be automatically entitled to an oral hearing and that’ll speed it up.”

According to Minister O’Callaghan, the appeals stage is typically where cases begin to drag out.

Main image: The Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) facility at Dublin Airport, 17-10-2007. Image: Mark Stedman/RollingNews