Most Asylum Seekers come here from UK

OFFICIAL FIGURES indicate that the bulk of those claiming asylum status in the Republic in the past 12 months came here from Britain and arrived across the Border with Northern Ireland.
According to figures supplied by Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan, in response to a parliamentary question from Labour Justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte, more than 90 per cent of asylum seekers were already in this State when they first applied for asylum.
The figures show that 3,844 people sought asylum in the Republic in the 12 months to the end of March. Of that number, 3,248 made their first application for asylum at the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner on Mount Street in Dublin, and not at their point of entry into the State.
Of this number, only 12 sought asylum at ports, and 304 made their application at airports. A further 244 sought asylum from prison after they were jailed for committing an offence in this State.

http://www.immigrationcontrol.org/news.html#latestnewsitem

One fifth of foreign children in care 'go missing'

ALMOST one in five foreign children placed in Health Service Executive care go missing and are never found again, shocking new figures reveal.
More than 440 children, most of whom are asylum seekers who arrived in Ireland unaccompanied by any adult relatives, have gone missing from HSE facilities since 2000 and remain unaccounted for.

Of 2,536 foreign children placed in HSE care since 2000, some 441 have gone missing from care and only a very small proportion of them were later found.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/one-fifth-of-foreign-children-in-care-go-missing-1353867.html

Gardai massaging crime statistics for years

A MAJOR independent appraisal of crime has shown a shockingly low level of convictions for the most common forms of crime in Ireland and established that the gardai and the Department of Justice have been massaging crime statistics for years.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) evaluation -- set in train by former Justice Minister Michael McDowell -- shows appallingly low levels of convictions for the most common forms of crime that actually require investigation, like burglary, car theft, theft from the person, criminal damage and arson and which affect most people.

It appears from the CSO figures that the gardai were lumping in high "detection" offences like traffic offences (where there is generally a 100 per cent "detection" rate because a person almost necessarily has to be detected on the spot) and drugs possession, again where a person is usually caught in the act for the crime actually to exist, to make the figures look better.
Senior garda sources have told the Sunday Independent that the key crime areas for evaluating real detection levels are in the burglary, criminal damage and theft categories. The CSO examined reported crimes from 2003 to 2006.
-Out of a total of 99,799 reported or recorded burglaries between 2003 and 2006 there were only 7,985 recorded convictions, or just 8 per cent of cases.
-Car theft, shows an even worse scenario. Out of a total of 53,905 cases over the four years there were just 3,815 convictions -- a conviction rate of 5.1 per cent in 2006.
-The gardai appear to be tackling the crime of theft from the person, where the victim at least is usually able to give a description of the thief, somewhat better. Conviction rates rose from 6.8 per cent in 2003 to 10 per cent in 2006.
-Conviction rates for the offence of criminal damage, however, have almost halved in the same period from 7.9 per cent in 2003 to only 4.4 per cent in 2006. So, vandals stand less than a 1-in-20 chance of being caught and convicted.
The CSO statistics also reveal that the level of murder detection falls over the four years in line with an increase in gangland killings, all but a few of which remain unsolved to this day.
There were 51 murders in 2003 in which 31 led to "relevant proceedings" in court. The conviction rate was 48 per cent in 2004, but this began to fall as the crime-related gangland murders increased in 2005 and 2006 when the conviction rate fell to 21 per cent.
-The figures also show that four out of 10 people charged with drink driving are evading conviction, a reflection of the amount of work being put into the exploitation of legal loopholes.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gardai-massaging-crime-statistics-for-years-new-cso-report-shows-1360452.html