A proposals that asylum-seekers from countries considered "safe" would have their applications to remain in Ireland as refugees fast-tracked has been criticised by the chairman of the Bar Council.
Mr Conor Maguire SC said the planned list of "safe countries" - whose nationals would be presumed not to be refugees - "did not seem to be a good idea, and not merely because it does not operate successfully in other jurisdictions". The proposal would mean that asylum applicants from countries including EU accession countries, which are seen as unlikely to "generate refugees", would face a presumption that their claims are "manifestly unfounded".
Nationals of listed countries would automatically have their refugee applications fast-tracked in a bid to deter ill-founded asylum claimants and prevent them from clogging up the system.
"The presupposition that a person cannot be a refugee merely because they come from Germany or Russia suggests a black-and-white approach to a concept that is more often grey," said Mr Maguire at a weekend conference in Dublin on asylum and refugee law, organised by the Bar Council.
"The Geneva Convention [on refugees] counsels against such generalisations in favour of an examination of each individual case on its merits. If Canada had adopted the view that all Irish citizens must be assumed not to be refugees because Ireland is not regarded as a refugee-generating country, then we would probably not have had the landmark decision in the Ward case."
The Ward case involved an INLA informer who successfully sought refugee status in Canada.
The proposal 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. Asylum-seekers whose cases are deemed manifestly unfounded are entitled to a written appeal only, instead of the normal oral hearing.
A barrister who handles refugee appeals cases, Ms Teresa Blake, told the conference that it was unfair to practitioners that decisions of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal are not published.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, was later questioned about this and about "varying degrees of success" among refugee applicants before different tribunal members.
He said he would not exclude the publication of decisions, and had discussed the issue with the tribunal's chairman, Mr P.J. Farrell.
Mr McDowell said he did not want to "set quotas" for the tribunal's members, who are all independent in carrying out their quasi-judicial function.
"Allowing for that, I will explore further with P.J. Farrell publication of reasons for decisions and statistics on decisions," he added. Mr McDowell also vigorously defended the proposed "safe countries list".