Concern about Government policy affecting asylum seekers was expressed inside and outside of the Dail yesterday as the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, took steps to advance a series of EU measures designed to create a Common European Asylum System. The nature of the measures contemplated will inevitably make it more difficult for people from Third World countries to enter and make their homes within the EU. And the initiative drew a warning from the opposition parties that we must not conspire with other EU member states to create a Fortress Europe.
The Fine Gael spokesman on justice, equality and law reform, Mr Alan Shatter, was particularly critical of the Minister. While preaching the need to tolerate diversity, he said, the policies implemented by Mr O'Donoghue had directly contributed to a growth in racism and xenophobia in this State. Existing processing methods created huge backlogs; deprived asylum seekers of the right to work; finger-printed them; made them dependent on State hand-outs and were unacceptable. The recent introduction of a system of `pre-emptive exclusions' of asylum seekers at ferry terminals in France would only drive desperate people into the arms of criminal gangs, Mr Shatter warned.
The Labour Party spokesman, Mr Brendan Howlin, was more circumspect in his criticisms. But he also found the Minister to have been "ungenerous" in his approach to refugees and asylum seekers. And he secured a commitment from Mr O'Donoghue that he would set out the Government's position in relation to all major aspects of the draft EU asylum directive, later this week.
Representatives of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace last night expressed their concerns over the introduction of a "pre-emptive exclusions" system, designed to reduce the number of asylum seekers. In a period of six weeks before Christmas, a total of 124 people were refused passage on Irish ferries from France. And a further 39 persons were not allowed to disembark at Rosslare because their documentation was not in order. These and other matters will be discussed tomorrow in Dublin at a conference on the theme, "Responding to Racism", which will be opened by the Catholic Primate, Dr Sean Brady.
Racism is a canker in society. It has an ability to infect attitudes and behavioural patterns and to poison relationships between citizens and newly-arrived immigrants - be they asylum seekers or refugees. Our own experience as a people, which saw generations of poverty-stricken Irishmen and women forced abroad to make a living and to subsidise their families at home, should make us particularly sensitive to the needs and rights of asylum seekers. In that regard, the Minister's announcement of his intention to scrap a recent law, which restricts the news media from photographing or naming a refugee without his approval, is to be welcomed. The health of society is intrinsically linked to our response to the most needy. There is therefore a need to be generous to the dispossessed of the earth and to ensure that racism will not be tolerated within State institutions, political parties, law enforcement agencies, the public service, the media and other areas of public life.