Refugee activist says work ban on asylum-seekers 'very dramatic'

A South American/Canadian political analyst has criticised the Government's refusal to allow asylum-seekers to work.

Mr Francisco Rico Martinez, former president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, has also highlighted the contradiction whereby asylum-seekers are allowed to vote in local elections but are prohibited from getting jobs pending their application for refugee status.

Foreign nationals here have already been identified as potential key voters in next year's local elections.

Ireland should learn from the Canadian approach to asylum-seeking, Mr Martinez told a meeting hosted by the Galway Refugee Support Group at NUI, Galway, this week.

He said asylum-seekers in Canada were allowed to find work immediately, once they had undergone a medical examination and had submitted their application for refugee status.

This allowed for better integration and was also "cheaper", he pointed out. "Many of these people are no longer drawing State social service supports after four months."

Mr Martinez, originally from El Salvador, was forced to seek political asylum in Canada after several attempts on his life.

He has many years of experience in refugee advocacy and voluntary activity on behalf of victims of human rights violations, and has published a number of works on the issue.

He is based in Toronto and is working with the FCJ Hamilton House Project, which works to meet the diverse needs of uprooted peoples. Some 52 per cent of Toronto's population is not Canadian-born, and so the country has had to develop a policy which is more oriented towards multi-racial integration.

Mr Martinez said it was "very frustrating" to witness the treatment of some asylum-seekers here, who were denied certain basic human rights. He had visited hostels in Limerick earlier this week, where he met non-nationals who had been living there for substantial amounts of time.

"There is nothing wrong with this accommodation as such, but there is a failure on the part of Irish authorities to recognise that the kitchen is the centre-piece of southern cultures, where families cook, eat, consult. Everything passes through the kitchen, and to deprive asylum-seekers of access to a kitchen is to deprive them of their dignity," said Mr Martinez.

Similarly, depriving people of their right to work was also "very dramatic", he added.