Family Reunification Waiting Times

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Enda Kenny (Taoiseach) and Eamon Gilmore (Tánaiste)

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Dear Taoiseach & Tánaiste

I am writing to you in relation to current application waiting times in the family reunification process. The current processing time is 18 months. In this time young children are separated from parents, and husbands from wives. This situation attacks the very basis upon which Irish society is built.

The protection of family life is enshrined in Article 41 of the Irish Constitution.

"The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law."

Refugees and recipients of Subsidiary Protection are entitled to apply for Family Reunification in keeping with the 1951 UN Convention and the European Communities (Eligibility for Protection) Regulations 2006.

It is the experience of The Integration Centre staff that the application process generally takes one and a half years at a minimum.

Refugees are entitled to be with their families under law. These lengthy waiting times are unfair, and divide families.

Refugees and recipients of Subsidiary Protection have often suffered trauma in their home countries, these bureaucratic delays unnecessarily adds to this further.

Other countries process applications for Family Reunification in much less time. Both in the US and the UK processing times average less than six months.

For refugees separated from their families, despite being protected by law, it is a time of loneliness and desperation.

The 2010 - 2012 Strategy Statement High Level Goals produced by the Office of Refugee Admissions Commissioner (ORAC) promises: To achieve optimum productivity in processing applications for family reunification within minimum timeframes.

I request that this promise is kept to and that application processing times for Family Reunification be reduced to 6 months.

Yours Sincerely

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Between 2001 and 2011 4,107 applications for Family Reunification were made on behalf of 8,876 family members in Ireland.

In a time span of ten years it averages out to around 400 applications made per year.

To these 400 families this application means everything.

Despite being protected by law and entitled to have their families live with them in Ireland, Refugees wait 18 months for this application to be processed.

The reality is that in this time baby’s turn into toddlers, toddlers into children, and spouses lose partners. Families disintegrate.

We are asking the government to put family first and to ensure that application times for family reunification take no more than 6 months.

The Integration Centre is a non-governmental organisation which is committed to the integration and inclusion of people from immigrant backgrounds in Ireland.