Many asylum applicants will from this year have their claims processed on-site in large accommodation centres where they live, if proposals currently being explored by the authorities are put in place.
The move, aimed at increasing efficiency in asylum processing, would mean that asylum applicants would no longer have to travel to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (RAC) in Dublin city to have their claims handled.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said officials from its asylum policy unit and the RAC are looking at the possibility of placing processing staff in large accommodation centres such as the former Mosney holiday camp in Co Meath and the Balseskin centre in north Co Dublin.
It is likely that people whose cases would be handled on-site in accommodation centres would include applicants from countries due to be designated as "safe," including EU accession states and Romania.
Nationals from such countries would have their asylum cases fast-tracked, with the presumption that their claims to be recognised as refugees fleeing persecution were manifestly unfounded.
An amendment to the Immigration Bill 2002, currently before the Oireachtas, is expected in the coming months to allow a "safe countries" list to be drawn up.
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 unfounded asylum claims and preventing them from clogging up the system.
The proposals would particularly affect applicants from former communist Central and Eastern European states, including Romania, which are not now seen as oppressive. Romanians have accounted for about 14 per cent of asylum applicants for the past two years. The countries due to join the EU in 2004 are: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, as well as Cyprus and Malta.
Asylum-seekers whose cases are deemed manifestly unfounded are entitled to a written appeal only, instead of the normal oral hearing. Asylum applicants who are recognised as refugees with a well founded fear of persecution in their home country are permitted to live and work permanently in Ireland. Those whose claims are not successful are liable to deportation. Some 11,530 asylum applications were lodged last year, according to provisional figures.