Asylum applicants from certain countries classified as safe will face a presumption that their claims for refugee status are unfounded and have their cases fast-tracked, under proposals to be put to the Cabinet within weeks.
Ten European Union accession states, as well as other countries seen as unlikely to generate refugees, will be named on the list, which is aimed at deterring ill-founded asylum claims and preventing them from clogging up the system.
The proposals would particularly affect the current one in 11 asylum applicants from former communist Central and Eastern European states, which are not now seen as oppressive.
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell, said he will seek Cabinet approval for the plans within weeks.
"Certain countries will be listed in a formal way as countries in respect of which Ireland doesn't accept that they are likely to be oppressive or tyrannical regimes and in those cases there will be a presumption of manifest unfounded nature. There will still be a quick investigation of any particular claim but the presumption will be that the claim is unfounded," he said.
The Minister said he hoped such a measure "would achieve a situation where somebody coming from one of those countries would get a very quick hearing with the presumption against them. It would stop them clogging up the system by simply joining a queue and taking advantage of the time limits to either come into the country and disappear or clog up and abuse the asylum-seeking provisions of our law."
While the "safe countries of origin" list has not been finalised, the Minister has indicated it would include countries with strong human rights records such as Canada and New Zealand, as well as the 10 states which are due to join the EU in 18 months. These are: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, as well as Cyprus and Malta. Mr McDowell acknowledged it is "theoretically possible that a political refugee will come from Canada, but we cannot have a system whereby people can invoke a complex legal process with appeals and judicial review and all the rest of it and spend many, many months here while a claim that is to be presumed to be manifestly unfounded is dealt with."
While cases deemed to be manifestly unfounded are currently already fast-tracked, the proposal to formally list safe countries would tighten up the asylum system. About one in 11 claimants for refugee status in the first nine months of this year came from EU accession countries.
Out of 8,412 asylum claims in the first nine months of this year, about 765 applicants were from nine of these 10 countries, excluding Malta. Polish nationals were the largest group, with 247 applications, followed by citizens of the Czech Republic, who made 205 applications. Lithuanians made 193 claims.
Asylum-seekers whose cases are deemed manifestly unfounded are entitled to a written appeal only, instead of the normal oral hearing.
The planned move mirrors developments in the UK, where a so-called "white list" of 10 countries was introduced this month. Human rights campaigners in Europe have opposed such lists on the basis that minority groups face persecution in states that might otherwise be considered safe.