A Government proposal to increase the number of refugees taken in annually under a United Nations resettlement programme has been welcomed by the UN's refugee body in Ireland.
While the scale of the increase has not been decided, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Dublin is seeking to increase the number of resettled refugees to hundreds a year from the annual total of 10.
Pre-selected refugees accepted in the State under UN resettlement programmes are distinct from those asylum claimants who make their own way to Ireland at the rate of about 10,000 a year.
Ms Pia Prutz Phiri, senior liaison officer with the UNHCR in Dublin, confirmed yesterday she was discussing an increase in the resettlement programme with the Government. She said she would like to see Ireland receive hundreds of cases annually, in line with the numbers of refugees accepted by Nordic countries with similar population sizes as Ireland.
She emphasised, however, that an increase in resettlement programme refugees, who are pre-selected by UNHCR's headquarters for transfer to Ireland, should not detract from the State's obligation to process refugee claims from "spontaneous arrivals".
Such people are allowed to live in Ireland permanently if they establish they are refugees fleeing persecution. Fewer than one in 10 such asylum applicants is granted refugee status on this basis.
People admitted under the UN's resettlement programme, however, have already established they are refugees in need of international protection. About 50 people have arrived each year from countries including Afghanistan and Iran, as well as several African states.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has said he will bring forward measures in the near future to ensure Ireland gets a "full quota of refugees through the UNHCR. This will be a system in which there won't be all the necessity to test people to work out if they are lying to you". He said he had asked the UNHCR to give him numbers.