Many asylum-seekers who can afford to pay four or five-figure sums are arriving in Ireland on false documents and are not always those most in need of protection, a seminar in Limerick heard at the weekend. It was also said they arrive by routes "provided by a sophisticated network of agents".
Mr Robert Eagar, a criminal lawyer who has specialised in refugee matters, was speaking at a three-day conference of the Society of Young Solicitors and Barristers held in Adare Manor, Co Limerick, on the subject of "Refugees in Ireland - Legal Considerations".
He said many of these asylum-seekers have arrived in Ireland in recent times on false documents or have destroyed their papers en route on the instructions of an agent. This created problems not only for the receiving country but also for those seeking asylum.
Mr Eagar said that as a result of "a series of judicial decisions which dismantled the harsh approach of the Department of Justice to the concept of persons seeking political status in Ireland", the Refugee Act of 1996 was brought in.
He said the issue of whether a person has made an application for asylum will be the subject of extensive High Court proceedings in the case of 26 Turkish Kurds who were refused entry to Ireland at Shannon Airport and alleged that they were subsequently assaulted. They were sent to Canada, he said, where all of them were granted full refugee status. Mr Eagar said persons coming into the State from Britain or Northern Ireland used to be governed by "the common travel area" but are now governed by the Aliens (Amendment) Number 3 Order of 1997. This provides that an emigration officer may examine an alien arriving in the State from Britain or the North for the purpose of determining whether he or she shall be granted entry. In effect, the provisions in relation to refusing entry apply in this case and abolish the common travel area.