An amnesty for asylum-seekers who applied or were entitled to make an application for refugee status before January 1st, 1998, which would give them all the rights and privileges of a recognised refugee, is proposed in a Democratic Left Private Member's Bill published yesterday.
The Bill also proposes that the once-off amnesty should apply to those who were eligible or had applied for refugee status within three months of the enactment of it and should remain in the State as "admitted asylum-seekers".
Announcing the Bill at a press conference yesterday, the party's spokeswoman on justice, Ms Liz McManus, said that unless steps were taken to regularise the position of asylum-seekers we were going to be faced with the shocking spectacle of entire families being forcibly deported from Ireland.
"The Bill is essentially providing a special status of admitted asylum-seekers for people who have been waiting for a considerable length of time for their cases to be heard. There is a crisis in applications," she said.
Ireland was the only country in Europe which did not have a transparent and statutory basis for dealing with the issue. What Ireland had was an unfair and secretive system. There was such a backlog of applications, and this was an attempt to deal with the situation, she added.
The number of asylum-seekers in Ireland was relatively small, but about 4,000 were believed to have arrived in the country last year. They would be people who had applied and those who were eligible to apply.
Certain categories of people would be excluded from the amnesty, such as those who would not be qualified to apply under the 1996 Refugee Act or who had been convicted of criminal offences in Ireland.
The Asylum Seekers (Regularisation of Status) Bill 1998 provided a simple procedure to "wipe the slate clean" and regularise the position of the asylum-seekers who faced a fearful and uncertain future because of the failure of the Government to implement the 1996 Refugee Act, she said.
"There is widespread political recognition that forced deportations would be an intolerable option for this country, especially given our own history," Ms McManus said.
The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, had said the Government was open to the idea and Ms McManus believed there was support for the Democratic Left proposal. Fine Gael had already publicly expressed support for an amnesty.
The Refugee Act provided certain basic legal protections and guaranteed fair procedures for asylum-seekers.
"We cannot revert to a series of secret hearings by faceless officials, when the freedom and, in some cases, the lives and safety of asylum-seekers are at stake. If our Private Member's Bill is enacted, thus clearing the backlog that now exists, there would then be absolutely no excuse for not implementing all of the procedures contained in the Refugee Act," she added.