I thank all the Deputies who contributed to the debate, particularly those who acknowledged that we kept our promise. There has been a very broad welcome for this important Bill which was introduced to ensure that our procedures for dealing with applications for asylum will meet the highest possible standards. This is an issue on which all parties agree. The Bill represents a significant step in terms of achieving that objective.
Members referred to the widening of the definition of a refugee to include issues such as the admission of family members, questions of legal aid, procedures, the appointment of a commissioner and matters relating to the board. All those issues reflect details of my meetings with NGOs, such as The Irish Refugee Council, Amnesty International and the Irish Red Cross. These organisations have for a long time taken a detailed, serious and practical interest in the welfare of refugees. The Bill is partly a reflection of my meetings with those organisations. I acknowledge the advice and the information they made available to me.
The work of my predecessor in the Department of Justice, Deputy Geoghegan-Quinn, and the debates and discussions during the process of the 1994 Bill on Committee Stage were a major influence in the drafting of this Bill. A substantial number of amendments have arisen from the work undertaken by Deputies on the former Bill together with my review of it and contact with the NGOs I have mentioned. This Bill is a product of that influence. Many Deputies in addressing the Bill have talked not only about its subject matter but about Ireland's position regarding refugees. While the Bill is confined specifically to asylum seekers who arrive here, I assure Deputies that my approach is based on our overall responsibility to refugees. Given our traditions and experiences in regard to refugees, including those who seek asylum status in Ireland specifically dealt with in this and the earlier Bill, and our responsibility as a small independent member state of the European Union, our approach is one of addressing the broader issue of refugees throughout the world.
Currently our assistance to refugees falls under three headings. Through the overseas development programme we have to respond to an increasing number of crises which we wish could be avoided. We spend just less than £10 million as part of our overseas aid and development programme on refugees in places like the camps in Goma. A Deputy spoke of refugees in the former Yugoslavia. On behalf of Irish people, Irish Aid is proud to be assisting refugees in parts of the former Yugoslavia. The amount of money being spent there is significant. We are also assisting refugees in Palestine and under the care of UN agencies in that area. Hopefully, that will be of substantial assistance to the Middle Eastern peace process.
The second leg of our commitment to refugees is our admittance of programme refugees, groups who arrive as a result of a Government decision. Currently there are approximately 1,000 programme refugees here, approximately half of whom are Vietnamese and half from the former Yugoslavia. When programme refugees arrive in Ireland they are entitled to the same entitlements as an Irish person in relation to health, education, welfare and social services. I compliment the various agencies and social welfare services from health boards to community welfare officers, particularly in Dublin and in Clare, who deal with such cases.
We have a refugee agency under the Department of Foreign Affairs which is one of the agencies under my responsibility. That agency deals with the social and economic development of programme refugees. I am pleased that the Vietnamese and Bosnian programme refugees have active associations which, with Government financial support, address issues of social development, integration, language and particularly training to ensure those with programme status can ultimately enter the job market. Many Deputies identified that as a critical issue, a point with which I agree, and it is being addressed.
The Government has given permission for another 250 refugees to be accepted from the former Yugoslavia, together with their families in due course. We have made a number of offers to family members of Bosnian refugees based here to join their families and we look forward to their arrival. Our concerns in terms of international relations should be to assist in the achievement of human rights and democratic standards throughout the world to ensure that it will not be necessary for people to flee their native countries in fear of persecution and in terror for the safety of their lives and those of their families. That remains a fundamental principle of Irish foreign policy.
This Bill is closely modelled on the Refugee Bill introduced by the previous Government. It contains a substantial number of additional provisions to safeguard the interests of persons applying for refugee status. I am glad these measures meet with the approval of Members.
There is a limit to the number of issues that can be addressed in reply to a Second Stage debate. I am aware that a number of matters raised are more appropriate to Committee Stage, Deputies will have an opportuntiy to table specific amendments to the Bill on that Stage and I assure the House that I will give full consideration to any tabled.
A number of speakers expressed concern about the Dublin Convention set out in the Fourth Schedule to the Bill. While it is a matter we can discuss in detail on Committee Stage, it might be helpful if I were to clarify the position in that regard. I would like the House to be clear about its purpose. Its primary one is the protection of the right of an asylum seeker to have his or her claim determined in accordance with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. We are all aware of cases where asylum seekers have been sent back and forth from one state to another. That is the phenomenon that has become known as refugees in orbit. The Dublin Convention was drawn up to address that problem.
The stated aim of the convention is to guarantee that an applicant who makes an asylum claim in the EU will have his or her application examined in one of the member states in accordance with the terms of the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. In the Dublin Convention member states specificaly reaffirm their commitment to the UN Convention and undertake to co-operate with the UNHCR in its implementation. I draw the attention of the House in particular to the fact that in August 1991 the UNHCR adopted a formal position on the Dublin Convention welcoming its principles including the guarantee that an asylum application will be examined by one of the member states.
The second point relates to the ratification of the Dublin Convention. As Deputies will be aware, there is a requirement in Article 25.5.2 of the Constitution that the State shall not be bound by any international agreement involving a charge upon public funds unless the terms of that agreement have been approved by Dáil Éireann.
As the Dublin Convention would be regarded as being within the scope of Article 29.5.2 it will have to be specifically approved by the Dáil and enshrined in Statute before it can be ratified by Ireland and its terms implemented. This will require bringing a motion before the House seeking such approval. That will facilitate a full debate on the convention and I am sure Members who addressed the question of a convention will contribute at that stage. Accordingly, we have provided in section 22 for making orders to enable the convention to have effect. These orders are in the course of preparation. When the motion seeking approval to ratify the convention is brought before this House, I plan to make available to Deputies drafts of the orders to be made to bring the terms of the convention into effect.
I do not propose to go into detail now on the contents of the Dublin Convention but it is important to bear in mind that it does not change asylum law or the obligations on member states of the European Union. It sets out rules for determining the State responsible for examining an asylum claim. For example, if Ireland had issued a visa to a person who then travelled to France and lodged an asylum claim there, Ireland would, under the convention, be responsible for examing the application for asylum. If the position was reversed and France had issued a visa and the application was lodged in Ireland, then France would be responsible for the examination. The responsible state must accept responsibility before an applically can be transferred. We have specifically provided in section 22 that an application cannot be transferred unless the other state concerned has agreed to accept it. Furthermore, while bound to accept an application for which it is responsible, a state is quite free to decide not to transfer an application to another member state and to assume responsibility for examining it.
A number of Deputies have voiced a concern raised by Amnesty International that if, under the Dublin Convention, we were to transfer an application to one of our European partners that country might send the applicant back to his or her country of origin. In that context I would point out that all EU states are parties to the UN Convention in relation to the Status of Refugees. The Dublin Convention's starting point is that is guarantees that the member states will honour their obligations under the UN Convention which specifically provides that an applicant will not be returned to a state where the life or freedom of that person would be threatened on account of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. This is known as the non-refoulement principle and Deputies will appreciate, therefore, that it will not be open to any member state to return applicants to countries where they may face persecution. Deputies will no doubt be interested to note that the EU member states have agreed that a threat to bodily integrity is covered in the nonrefoulement principle.
I would be concerned if Members suggested we could not trust our fellow member states to live up to their obligations under the UN Convention. It is extremely important for Ireland that we and all our EU partners play a full and responsible role in the affairs of the Union and that we operate in a climate of mutual trust and co-operation. For our part we have entered into a commitment to ratify the Dublin Convention which was signed on behalf of this country by the Minister for Justice in June, 1990.
I realise there is a need for a full debate on the Dublin Convention. We can have that debate on Committee Stage and we can have another debate when I bring the motion for ratification of the convention before the House.
A number of Deputies expressed concern about manifestly unfounded applications. I would remind the House that the UNHCR support special procedures for dealing with manifestly unfounded applications because they are concerned that the asylum process should be reserved for genuine applicants and that it should not be undermined by applications that are wholly without merit. The executive committee of the UNHCR adopted a conclusion in 1983 to the effect that national procedures "may usefully include special provision for dealing in an expeditious manner with applications which are considered to be so directly without foundation as not to merit a full examination at any level". In this Bill the grounds on which the Refugee Applications Commissioner may form a view that an application is manifestly unfounded are rebuttable and an applicant will have an opportunity, which includes the facility of an interview, to put forward a case that the application is not manifestly unfounded. Some of the grounds on which an application can be regarded as manifestly unfounded have been redrafted to take on board the Deputies' concerns that genuine asylum seekers could too easily fall into this category. For example, because genuine applicants may, in certain circumstances, have no option but to use forged documents, I have amended the relevant provisions so that only those applicants who do not have reasonable cause for having such documents could find themselves having their applications treated as manifestly unfounded.
Where the commissioner finds that an application is manifestly unfounded, the applicant will have a right of appeal to the appeal board and a right to an oral hearing before the board.
I will give a practical example of the whole question of manifestly unfounded applications. Recently I was with President Robinson in Rwanda and in Zaire where we met numerous groups of refugees. There are more that 2 million refugees in the countries around the borders of Rwanda. At present an international tribunal is seeking to address the question of war crimes in the genocide in which nearly one million people in Rwanda lost their lives in four months. If a war criminal, somebody involved in the genocide in Rwanda who had committed crimes against humanity was a terrorist or a person who would put the Irish public at risk applied to this country for refugee status in such a way as to seek to escape from the international tribunal and from justice it is correct that we protect ourselves from such an abuse of the refugee applications system. That is what the "manifestly unfounded" regulations seek to do. They take into careful account the points made by Deputies in the debate on the 1994 Bill when it was before the House. Deputies referred to the need to provide access to interpreters. The advice available to me is that the wording in the Bill places an onus on our authorities to provide interpreters while allowing for situations where it would simply not be possible to have an interpreter available and the rare and exceptional cases where a person refuses to co-operate with the authorities. In effect, the wording will ensure the provision of interpretation as a matter of course. Information leaflets containing the type of information which would be required by asylum seekers will be made available in a wide range of languages. This was an issue which arose in the course of the discussion on the 1994 Bill. The Bill has been drafted so as to reflect the advice and the points made by Deputies at that time to put an onus on the authorities in Ireland to provide interpretation facilities. Access to an interpreter is critical to a refugee in terms of his ability to make his case in a country with different cultures and customs.
On the issue of family reunification, Deputy Lynch raised the question of whether children under 18 years who are married should be automatically excluded for family reunification purposes.
She had in mind asylum seekers from countries where the age of marriage is very low, either because children are married off at a young age by their parents—this happens in regions of the Indian sub-continent—or they simply marry at a very young age. Deputy Lynch pointed out that in certain cultures, child marriages are common and the child remains under the protection of his or her family. I appreciate the Deputy's point and I propose to seek the Attorney General's advice on this matter because, under our legislation, we do not permit marriage before 18 years of age.
Deputies also rightly raised the question of the funding of a scheme of legal assistance for asylum seekers. While there are not any provisions in the Bill relating to this, I am pleased to tell the House that the Government has agreed to provide funding for such a scheme. Officials of the Department of Justice have been holding talks with the UNHCR on this matter and are currently considering proposals. Further consultations with the UNHCR and other relevant organisations, including those with a specific interest in the welfare of refugees, will be required before an appropriate scheme can be finalised. I hope to be in a position to provide more information on this issue in the course of the passage of the Bill through this House.
Reference has also been made to the aliens section of the Department of Justice, the way it currently operates and how it operated in the past. While the term "alien" has a specific legal meaning both here and abroad, it is not a term with which I am happy. I am pleased, therefore, to advise Deputies that the name of the division in my Department dealing with individuals in the general immigration area, including asylum applications, was altered during the previous Minister's term of office and is now called the immigration and citizenship division. We have also sought to make certain improvements in that division in the process.
I have responsibility in the Department of Justice to provide information to the public on immigration matters. In regard to asylum seekers, an information leaflet given to such people sets out the application procedures and provides a list of useful contacts, including the Irish Refugee Council, the Red Cross, the Eastern Health Board and the Mid-Western Health Board. The application forms for asylum seekers have been altered following consultations with the Irish Refugee Council and are available in a number of languages including Arabic, French, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. On the general immigration side, a number of information leaflets are close to finalisation.
A number of Deputies raised points regarding immigration matters, generally. Deputies will be aware that an interdepartmental committee on non-Irish nationals was established to examine inter alia the policy and practice in relation to the admission to residence and right of work in the State of both EU and non-EU nationals. The first report of this committee laid the foundations of the Bill before the House today. The second report of the committee dealing with other immigration matters is expected to be presented to the Minister for Justice shortly.
I appreciate the points made by Deputies, particularly in this year when we begin a cycle of commemorating the great Irish Famine, the people who died as a result of it and those who were forced to flee Ireland to seek a better life abroad. Those people now form the Irish Diaspora of which we talk so much and are rightly proud.
The Bill is an appropriate response by us in this year of the Famine commemoration to meeting our international obligations and setting them out clearly in statute law. It simply deals with those people who arrive here and make application for political asylum. We give those people the same rights as Irish citizens while their application is being processed, including access to welfare, health, education and other services.
This is only one element of our support for refugees. In terms of overseas development aid we are now spending almost £10 million, most of which has gone to help refugees of countries such as Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Somalia and the Sudan. Where possible refugees should be facilitated to remain in their own country where there are now many internally displaced persons, to use UN jargon, or to stay as close as possible to their country of origin.
As a voice in international affairs, we must also seek to assist in the establishment of universal standards of human rights, justice and democracy which I hope will mean that in the next century we will not have the spectre of millions of people moving from one country to another because of persecution. That is one of our roles as a country which has also experienced great trauma.