Call for humanitarian asylum quota for disaster victims
A humanitarian quota system should be set up to give asylum to 1,000 victims of conflict or natural disasters each year, it was claimed today.
The scheme would be administered by the Minister for Justice and would allow victims of disasters such as the Asian tsunami to come to live in Ireland.
Fine Gael Justice Spokesman Jim O’Keefe said the scheme would take account of Ireland’s historical experience of famine and emigration.
“With this experience and mindful of the shelter granted by friendly nations to generations of Irish emigrants, it is proposed that Ireland would establish an annual humanitarian quota for the reception of persons from areas devastated by natural disasters or conflict,” he said.
Currently, refugees and asylum seekers must seek permission to stay from the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC), which then makes a recommendation to Minister for Justice Michael McDowell.
In Fine Gael’s new policy document on refugees and asylum seekers, Mr O’Keefe said that although ORAC had improved radically in recent years, there were still concerns about relatively unqualified officials making decisions on people’s future.
He said there were deficiencies in the operation of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (RAT), which has a chairman and 35 ministers.
“It has been highlighted that certain members have refused virtually all applications which they processed giving rise in very many instances to the lengthy and costly process of judicial review.”
