Several recommendations in a study commissioned by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform were disregarded by the Department in its policy and practice on refugees over the past year.
In summer 1998, the Faculty of Law in UCD was asked by the Minister, Mr O'Donoghue, to examine the Refugee Act of 1996, to compare it with legislation on refugees in other EU member-states, and to recommend amendments to the Refugee Act accordingly.
The study was carried out by Ms Suzanne Egan and Mr Kevin Costello, who circulated a questionnaire on the issues of concern to the Department to legal researchers in the other 14 member-states of the EU.
It is understood the study cost the Department about £40,000.
It was finally completed and submitted to the Department in March 1999. However, it was not officially published until January 27th this year, more than 10 months after its completion.
Then it was deposited discreetly in the Government Publications Office without so much as a press release to mark its publication. Even its authors were not told of its publication.
This contrasts sharply with the publication of another, much shorter, report for the Department on the integration of refugees, which was launched on February 10th with a lavish reception for the press and all the NGOs remotely connected with the issue of refugees.
The UCD report, Refugee Law Comparative Study, offers little comfort to the policy-framers in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform who have been promoting the issuing of vouchers to asylum-seekers, opposing their right to work and suggesting limiting their access to judicial review procedures.
It points out that the model of non-cash payments, or vouchers, as has begun in Britain and is to be followed here, is not in line with European practice in this area.
The majority of EU states offer welfare allowances either equal to, or greater than, those afforded to nationals, according to the study.
It also recommended that asylum-seekers should be able to apply for a discretionary work permit after a certain time.
This would have required an amendment to the Refugee Act to delete the provision preventing asylum-seekers from working. Such a measure has been vociferously opposed by the Department of Justice.
As reported last week in The Irish Times, the report states that there is no justification in European law and practice for restrictions on the right to judicial review. These were proposed in amendments to the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act, 1999.
The report stresses that all its recommendations are based on a comparative analysis of the majority practice in the other member-states, as was requested by the Department.
However, it points out that in some instances the practice in other EU member-states falls short of the rights afforded to refugees and asylum-seekers by the European Convention on Human Rights and other international agreements, and states that these must be taken into account in any proposed amendments to the Refugee Act.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform said the Department was broadly happy with the report, and had already implemented many of its recommendations.