MINISTER FOR Justice Dermot Ahern has rejected appeals to give asylum seekers the right to work, saying that this would not be appropriate in the current economic climate. He was speaking as he announced the surprise withdrawal of a major Immigration Bill passing through the Dáil.
Ruling out allowing asylum seekers to work, he said: “I don’t think the Irish people would thank us, given the fact we have 280,000 unemployed people across the country and 430,000 on the Live Register.”
Mr Ahern’s Government colleague, Mary White, Minister of State for Integration, recently called for changes to the system, including the right to work while seeking asylum. However, the Minister said that this was “not on our radar”.
Mr Ahern also ruled out reforming the direct provision system, which he said was costing the State €90 million a year. “If Mary White wants to provide the money from her new department – then away she can go,” he added.
Ms White, deputy leader of the Greens, said this month she would like to see asylum seekers given the right to work while they await a decision on their case and more flexible rules in the hostels where they live.
NGOs have strongly criticised the “direct provision” system, which houses hundreds of asylum seekers who are waiting years for their cases to be decided.
Mr Ahern said the biggest problem was not “direct provision” but the large number of vexatious judicial reviews against decisions.
“The problem is that the vast majority of people who claim asylum are not genuine asylum seekers, they are economic migrants,” said Mr Ahern, who added a new immigration Bill would restrict the number of judicial reviews to asylum decisions.
Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr Ahern said the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill 2008 would be withdrawn and republished as a new Bill to take account of several hundred amendments tabled by Opposition deputies in the Dáil.
He said the Bill had become a “massive tome” and it would be quicker to publish a new Bill incorporating some changes than continue with the current Bill, which is at report stage in the Dáil.
He said one suggested change he would incorporate in the new Bill is the extension of the “recovery period” of residence offered to victims of human trafficking. This will rise to 60 days, up from 45 days.
The Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill would legislate for the rights of people to come and live in the Republic, create a new long-term resident status and reform the asylum process.
It was intended that the Bill would replace all present immigration laws dating back to 1935. When published in January 2008, former minister for justice Brian Lenihan described the Bill as a “landmark legislation”.
However, groups representing migrants and asylum seekers have criticised the Bill, which would introduce the summary deportation and detention of people deemed unlawfully present in the country.
Fine Gael TD Denis Naughten last night criticised the Government for the decade-long delay in passing badly needed immigration legislation. “The current laws date back to 1936 and, considering the amount of change we have seen in the last 10 years, it is a huge issue for those people who have moved here,” he said. But he said he was prepared to work with the Government to get a new Bill passed.
Labour TD Pat Rabbitte said he was sceptical of the Minister’s motivation: “We spent 18 or 19 days in committee debating this, which was a record, and now he says he is withdrawing it. I don’t think there is any defence for this, after all those years of pledging legislation to deal with the immigration phenomenon.”
The Immigrant Council of Ireland said a new law was urgently needed.
“We hope the withdrawal of this Bill will finally lead to a complete reform of outdated and inadequate immigration law. We need to set out who gets to be in Ireland, on what basis and for how long. We hope our ideas are taken on board now,” said Hilkka Becker, senior solicitor with the Immigrant Council of Ireland.