MICHAEL HOURIGAN,
Sir, - The issue of asylum-seekers is one about which there is widespread confusion. And it is not encouraging to see Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, July 30th) adding to it. Furthermore, he seems to make a tacit, yet unsubstantiated assumption that the majority of those who seek asylum are doing so disingenuously.
Mr Myers contends we are obliged as signatories to the Geneva Convention to give refuge to "everyone who makes it to these shores and can prove that if they returned home they would face oppression". While this may be true of the convention itself, it must be read with the caveat that under Irish law, the criteria are stricter. Under the convention, as codified by the 1996 Refugee Act (as amended) , the State is obliged to give refuge to someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country." It should be evident that the test has thus become stricter than merely "proving oppression", as Mr Myers seems to suggest.
Mr Myers's point seems to be that because the asylum system is often used by those who are often termed "economic migrants", there are few if any real refugees (my emphasis) deserving of protection and that the various laws (the convention being key target for some reason) are, to use his word, "obsolete".
The case he ought to be making is for more sensible immigration laws, not for any encroachment on the legal protections afforded to those escaping persecution.
The true worth of the convention has to be measured by the fact that it has provided a guarantee against the possibility of non-refoulement, while not abrogating an individual state's right to implement the law as best suits their needs. This is the fundamental point that Mr Myers seems to have missed; that the creation of the convention was to provide a basic framework that sought to protect against the possibility that a signatory state would refuse to protect those genuinely in need of protection.
Mr Myers argues for the abandonment of the convention and its replacement with "immigration quotas and discretionary powers for the Minister of Justice". I would refer Mr Myers to the fact that such discretion would be bereft of the scrutiny and transparency required to ensure that the process did not become completely political in character. In doing so, I would ask him to consider those shiploads of Jews that so many states, our own included, refused to grant refuge to during the last World War.
As well as being a response to the massive post-war displacement, it was with a view to ensuring such incidents did not occur again that the 1951 convention was born. If Mr Myers is satisfied that the world community no longer needs to provide such guarantees in the form of international agreements, he lives in a utopia of which we should all be envious. - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL HOURIGAN, Leinster Square, Rathmines, Dublin 6.