The Government should immediately remove responsibility for refugees and asylum-seekers from the Department of Justice and set up a separate department to deal with immigrants, Cork-based Labour Senator Brendan Ryan has said.
Mr Ryan yesterday accused the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, and his Department of operating a disastrous policy on asylum-seekers and refugees. He said their failure to consult local communities was giving rise to prejudice simply because people weren't being properly informed.
"I couldn't imagine a worse Government department to be dealing with the problem - the Department of Justice are the most secretive of all Government departments and putting them in charge of something that involves informing and consulting with the public is as idiotic a thing as you could do," he said.
Mr Ryan said that while asylum-seekers were dealing with the Directorate of Support Services for Asylum-Seekers, it was set up under the aegis of the Department of Justice and was staffed by officials from the Department who spent their working lives in a culture of secrecy.
"A department like justice, which has a culture of seeing information in terms of obsessive secrecy, should be the last department to be given the responsibility for dealing with local communities who want to know what's going on and what's happening in their area," he said.
The Department of Justice knew nothing about housing, health or education, he said, and should have no legal function in the matter other than determining whether those who applied qualified for refugee or asylum status. Mr Ryan is the author of a book on freedom of information in Ireland.
Mr Ryan pointed to role of the Minister for Justice in the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Bill currently going through the Oireachtas - which he said would make it more difficult for the spouses of Irish citizens to obtain Irish citizenship - as an indication of the Department's anti-immigrant thinking.
"The Bill ostensibly is aimed at dealing with the issue of Irish citizenship on foot of the Northern Ireland Agreement but it includes a section which involves introducing a number of stringent conditions which anyone married to an Irish citizen must meet before they can apply for Irish citizenship. Under the 1953 Nationality and Citizenship Act - which incidentally was introduced by Fianna Fail in inward-looking Ireland - anyone married to an Irishman, as it was then, could automatically qualify for Irish citizenship after being married for three years. "That was amended in the mid-1980s to anyone who had an Irish spouse but now under the current proposal, Irish citizenship can only be obtained if they meet these criteria for applying and only then at the absolute discretion of the Minister - he or she can refuse citizenship at his or her discretion. It's a seriously retrograde step. Even Fianna Fail in the 1950s recognised the fact that many Irish emigrants had married abroad, but with this move now, if your spouse dies even though you may have lived here for years, you're not an Irish citizen and you have no legal rights here - it's disgraceful."
Mr Ryan also criticised Mr O'Donoghue for his approach to the asylum-seeker issue, saying that his recent comments in the Seanad, where he warned of a "glut of asylum-seekers", did nothing to placate public concerns and only served to give rise to concern.
"Imagine if John O'Donoghue had come into the Seanad and, rather than using a phrase like `a glut of asylum-seekers', said that these were unfortunate human beings who are lonely and frightened and who are hoping for a welcome from compassionate Irish people, imagine the response then."
He suggested that the Government should establish a department of humanitarian affairs under a minister of state to deal with providing housing, health and education for asylum-seekers while they had their applications assessed.
A Department of Justice spokesman rejected Mr Ryan's accusation of secrecy and said the Directorate of Support Services for Asylum-Seekers, while established under the aegis of the Department, drew staff from a number of other departments.
"The directorate was set up to co-ordinate and streamline the provision of services to asylum-seekers and its staff are drawn from the Departments of Health, Education and Science, Environment and Local Government, Social Community and Family Affairs as well as the Eastern and Southern Health Boards."
He said Mr Ryan seemed to underestimate the strain that 1,000 new asylum-seekers arriving each month was putting on the Civil Service and the urgent need there was to get these people housed in decent accommodation.
Mr Ryan also said most people believed asylum-seekers should be allowed to work, but the Government was afraid to sanction such a move, not because it would open any floodgates but because it would mean people would support individuals wishing to stay here.
"If they're allowed to work, they will become involved in Irish society and people will get to know them. The barriers will be broken down and prejudice will fall away and people will see asylum-seekers for what they are - vulnerable human beings with the same feelings and emotions any of us have."
