To ignore the urgent challenge of integrating people of different ethnic backgrounds who arrived in Dublin could create a highly dangerous vacuum in which racial hostility, ignorance and prejudice would flourish, the Lord Mayor of Dublin has said.
Speaking at the annual meeting of the Irish Refugee Council on Saturday, Ms Mary Frehill said people in the State had experienced "a very sharp learning curve" in recent years in learning to cope with asylum-seekers, a process which was by no means complete.
In 1992, 29 people applied for asylum in Ireland, compared to 4,626 last year, she said. "Looking back, it is fair to say that Irish society found itself singularly ill prepared to cope effectively with a relatively large increase in the number of refugees and asylum-seekers."
The State should strive to learn from mistakes which were made elsewhere to ensure that our social ethos would be one which respected and safeguarded the dignity and human rights of each individual seeking refuge from persecution.
She said now that statutory agencies were becoming better resourced to provide a full range of support services, organisations like the IRC should be able to step back from the front line of service delivery. This would enable them to concentrate on issues such as the right to work and access to education and training and ensure that our asylum process conformed with top international standards.
The council and its affiliated bodies could also make a critical contribution to building a climate of acceptance of all our ethnic traditions and successful integration at community level by educating people about the situation in the asylum-seekers' country of origin.
Ms Frehill said that as Lord Mayor she hoped to foster a pluralist, caring ethos at all levels of civic life.
"Whether it's one's city by birth or by adoption, let us all make Dublin a city in which its inhabitants can share a common sense of belonging."
Mr Joe Moran, of the Refugee Agency, said the reception accorded to 1,000 Kosovar refugees who came to the State showed that despite a poor track record in catering for asylum-seekers, "when we want to we can do it". It was important that the drive to cater for the Kosovar refugees got the issue of integrating asylum-seekers away from the eastern seaboard.
In the context of a history of not welcoming refugees the State could be proud of what was achieved in the last few months. However, it was a major issue and a challenge that, despite the welcome for the Kosovars, other asylum-seekers were treated with hostility. The needs of those who were invited to the country and those who made their own way were exactly the same.
Mr Jim Mitchell, of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, told the conference that the issue of allowing asylum-seekers to work was still before Cabinet and was the subject of ongoing deliberation.
