Ireland has agreed to take in 200 Iraqi Kurd refugees, some camped in the desert in no-man's land between the Iraqi and Jordanian borders since the invasion of Iraq almost three years ago, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has told The Irish Times, writes Kathy Sheridan in Amman.
Following an agreement reached with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) last June to increase Ireland's annual refugee resettlement quota from 40 to 200 people, Mr McDowell said yesterday said that two groups of Iraqi Kurds had now been identified for resettlement in Ireland.
They are among some 650 people who are "in effect, prisoners" in the middle of the desert, he said, because they are rarely allowed to leave the area. Their only shelter is tents which are frequently blown away or burnt out by paraffin heaters, in a climate where temperatures reach 40 to 50 degrees in summer and fall below zero in winter. While many are children, there are "little or no education facilities".
Mr McDowell said Ireland was spending €350 million a year - "approximately a third of what the UNHCR has to spend internationally" - on accommodation, processing and policing services for non-quota asylum seekers, of whom 92 to 94 per cent would ultimately be refused permission to stay.
"The real issue is that you know that there are genuine refugees who are not getting into Ireland at all," he said.
"If you saw the money that was poured into judicial reviews in the High Court, it doesn't make sense . . . Huge resources being absorbed into a process in which more than nine out of 10 applications are rejected."
Since 1998, Ireland is one of only six EU member states and 17 countries worldwide who take refugees from abroad under arrangements agreed with the UNHCR. Many of these are living in refugee camps, often in dire circumstances. At present, there are over nine million such refugees under the care of the UN body.
Under the 2005 quota, 116 people were accepted by Ireland, and resettled in Roscommon, Carrick-on-Shannon and Dublin.