Sir, – In reply to Nick Henderson of the Irish Refugee Council (Letters, February 10th), I would like to make a few points.
First, out of all the 27 EU member states, Ireland alone requires Georgian citizens to have a visa. Ireland is not a full Schengen member and uniquely does not allow Georgian citizens visa free access. Georgian citizens who choose to make their applications for asylum in Ireland travel through other EU states without applying for asylum there. Why?
Second, I never argued that Georgian and Albanian asylum seekers should simply be deported if they have no travel documents. I suggested that such applicants be dealt with by a “summary process” and returned “if they failed to present immediate and cogent evidence of a likelihood of state persecution” given that Georgia and Albania are considered “safe countries”.
Third, the European Union Agency for Asylum has noted the upsurge in asylum seeking by Georgian citizens in a special report published last year.
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That report states that the big factor in this upsurge is economic, and that Georgian applicants “make active use dedicated private Facebook pages where they can exchange information about opportunities as well as gaps in immigration systems , changes in migration regulations and ways to circumvent Georgia’s pre-departure checks”.
Fourth, there are no direct flights from Georgia to Ireland. At least two flights are required to arrive in Ireland.
Apart from the questions of visas, no reason except economic advantage can explain why Ireland is one of the top four EU targets for Georgian asylum seekers.
Finally, the figures quoted by Mr Henderson relate to decided cases in 2022, not to those claiming asylum in that year, when the big increase occurred. Even then, it appears that where older cases were not abandoned and went to decision-making (including appeals) the vast majority (more than 80 per cent) failed.
The inescapable conclusion is that Ireland is targeted for reasons of economics, and the failure of the State to provide a fast and efficient system to distinguish between economic migrants and genuine asylum seekers. – Yours, etc,
Senator MICHAEL McDOWELL,
Seanad Éireann,
Dublin 2.
Sir, – For Nick Henderson of the Irish Refugee Council to simply say that to speed up the processing and the immediate return of failed asylum seekers from “safe countries” or from applicants who deliberately destroy their travel documents is “breaking the law” implies that all laws must remain in place regardless of radically changed circumstances.
The fact is that even after all stages of the current asylum process, including appeals, have been completed, well over one thousand of these people will continue to reside in State-funded accommodation while many applicants for international protection from recognised war zones will sleep on our streets.
Our refugee law is of course based on the 1951 Refugee Convention which many people regard as almost a relic of the cold war when the West was anxious to welcome refugees fleeing communist persecution and there were still large numbers of stateless persons seeking a permanent home in Europe in the aftermath of the horrors of the second World War. Indeed, the convention was drafted primarily by Europeans; of the 26 original drafters, 20 were from Europe. As such, it has a distinctly European emphasis and does not deal in any specific detail with the challenges arising from failed economies and political insecurity in Africa and Asia.
Seventy years on, it is a vastly more complex situation when the majority of asylum seekers are at the mercy of organised criminal gangs who prey on vulnerable communities in the developing world regardless of the risk to life. The convention has also been criticised as inflexible by not dealing comprehensively with gender-based violence, the challenges presented by ethnic conflicts as in Bosnia and Kosovo and the legitimate concerns, expressed by signatories to the convention, in relation to national security and the fight against international terrorism.
The basic principles of the convention, such as the non-return of asylum seekers to dangerous countries, will always remain in national laws.
However, that does not mean that the convention and our laws should not be revisited in order to ensure that the international refugee system remains robust enough to deal with the huge challenges now facing us.
In particular, the unity displayed by Europe in response to the crisis in Ukraine has shown quite clearly that, at both convention and national levels, we can move toward a legal regime for refugees that ensures responsibility sharing among democratic nations throughout the world. – Yours, etc,
MARTIN McDONALD,
Terenure,
Dublin 12.