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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 9 Dec 1999

Vol. 512 No. 5

Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Bill, 1999: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

In recent weeks there was vote of no confidence in the present Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The immigration issue has been discussed at length. It is obvious that there is a conflict of opinion within the Cabinet about the matter. The Progressive Democrats Party has said that it will launch its policy in the next two weeks. It will be interesting to see if becomes Government policy.

There is no doubt that we need a formal immigration policy. At present there is an ad hoc, reactive situation. There is no coherent policy at all. It is time, in light of the numbers of immigrants who are now arriving in Dublin, to get our act together. Human rights must be a firm plank of any new policy. We must recognise that people, whether they are seeking asylum for political reasons or they are economic migrants, must be treated properly.

In April and May of this year we welcomed refugees from Kosovo. We could see the situation in their country on the television news. We all welcomed the fact that we were able to do something to help these people in a humane manner, that we were able to provide accommodation, support and everything necessary for people who have left their own country. Many people who leave their country would not choose to do that but feel they have to do it.

It is important to put this in context. Ireland has a history of emigration. In Cobh there is a heritage centre to remind us of the coffin ships and what people went through when they left this country. There were no means of support for them here and they had to leave in droves. They were accepted into the United States. They established themselves there and now Irish culture is a major influence in America. In recent years there have been many American visas issued to this country. We have all made representations on behalf of people we know and we are all aware of the work being done by people such as Ted Kennedy, Tip O'Neill, Daniel Moynihan. We all welcomed the Morrison visas at a time when people could not find work in this country. This country could not support those people so they emigrated.

We should look at immigrants in that context. We should think about how they can improve our society. Many of these people have qualifications which would help alleviate the skills shortage we now face.

Employers cannot recruit people, yet many asylum seekers would welcome the opportunity to work. Unfortunately, the system appears to be stagnant. It cannot process all the applications.

The Government needs to move the operation out of Dublin. The Eastern Health Board one-stop-shop in Dublin has to deal with everything. It is not working. There have been queues resulting in the inhumane treatment of people who have been left to stand in the rain. There are no facilities to deal with children, there is not anybody to explain what is happening and shutters are being pulled down at 5 o'clock in the evening. That is not the kind of image most people want to see, nor do they want to see the country dealing with asylum seekers in this way.

The purpose of the Bill is to crack down on trafficking in illegal immigrants. I appreciate the necessity for a form of control because some unfortunate asylum seekers are abused. I understand some Romanians had to pay an initial transportation fee and then make payments from their social welfare entitlements. It is necessary to clamp down on that.

However, I and my party are wary of the possible implications of the legislation. Does it mean that Aer Lingus staff or Irish Ferries operators will be impounded? We will look at that on Committee Stage.

We need a humane approach to this problem. We must recognise that travellers to the country face a language barrier, different customs, culture and background. Their health also needs to be addressed. People travelling to a strange country need support. Asylum seekers can wait for up to seven years to have their applications processed. That must be addressed. We must also develop a coherent immigration policy. We should not have to respond to crises.

(Dublin West): This Bill is typical of legislation introduced by the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats Government to address the issue of refugees. It is piecemeal, begrudging and damaging to the interests of people who are defenceless, are suffering and are extremely vulnerable. As usual it is being introduced under false pretences, in this instance the pretence that there is a crisis of enormous proportions with regard to people seeking refuge here and that the numbers seeking refuge are somehow orchestrated by highly organised gangs of Mafia threatening the State and the population.

These lurid claims are made to enable the Government to justify legislation that is narrow and xenophobic. If Mafia gangs are involved in trafficking I deplore it. However, we should not criminalise refugees or people genuinely seeking to help them, from honest humanitarian motives, under the guise of taking on the criminal Mafia. If these criminal elements are exploiting vulnerable people they will not come under the scope of this legislation or jurisdiction. In that sense the Bill is a fiction.

This legislation could criminalise any citizen or person who assists somebody escaping from a well founded fear of persecution, injury or even death. For example, an aid worker in an African state with an oppressive regime might assist somebody to escape rapidly and arrange for that person to travel to Ireland to be introduced to, say, friends. If the person travelled here in a hurry and then applied for political asylum the aid worker who gave such assistance could be found guilty of a serious offence and face imprisonment for up to ten years. That is outrageous.

What does it say about the attitude of the Government to our history? What about the tens of thousands of youth who travelled to the streets of Boston, Chicago and New York in the 1980s at a time when Fianna Fáil Deputies begged the US Administration to make them legal? If the principle of this legislation was applied, any Irish born persons in the US who assists a relative, friend or neighbour to travel to the US and stay beyond their time could be imprisoned for ten years. Is that the message the Government wants to send to the US and other countries where Irish people seek to make a new home for whatever reason?

The Episcopal commission on emigration recently produced a report which showed that 1,287,987 Irish born people live beyond the boundaries of this State, yet the fact that a few thousand people are travelling here appears to be a crisis for the Government. The report points out that more than 1,000 Irish people are imprisoned in other countries for various crimes.

This Bill dances to the tune of the odious attitudes and statements of Fianna Fáil backbenchers, such as Deputy Callely. His remarks appalled a majority of people in the country. It is a disgrace that a Fianna Fáil backbencher would attempt to play on the resentment of poor Irish people about their lack of proper housing and accommodation and seek to blame refugees and people seeking asylum. It is incredible that a Deputy from a party whose funders – the builders and developers – have created the housing crisis and shortage of building space should seek to scapegoat innocent people. The principal of an inner city school recently stated that he must go outside the gates of his school to protect some children of a different colour who are attending it.

Deputy Callely and his ilk carry a moral responsibility for the racism of a small and sick minority in our society. Words spoken from the comfort of Leinster House or the Eastern Health Board, where, scandalously, he is still the chairman, are taken to heart by this sick minority as they carry out racist actions. It is beyond belief that he was not censored by his party leader and the Minister and fired from the Eastern Health Board. Let us welcome people who are in need as millions of our people were welcomed throughout the world.

When he introduced Second Stage of this Bill the Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, said he "did not intend turning the debate into a discussion on our immigration and asylum policy". What immigration and asylum policy? The debate on this Bill is part and parcel of the debate on immigration and asylum, in spite of the Minister's best intentions. If the Government had a coherent policy on asylum with equitable treatment for asylum seekers, sound legislation, fair practice and adequate resources and a proper immigration policy which recognises the right of economic migrants and the labour needs of the Irish economy this Bill could be considered as an element in an overall framework. We could then examine the issue of illegal trafficking separately and distinctly. However, we have none of these things. Instead, we have a patchwork of reactive legislation. We have a Refugee Act which has not been fully implemented, an Immigration Bill which is really a deportation Bill, a scandalous situation at the Refugee Applications Centre in Lower Mount Street, an undercurrent of racism against asylum seekers and immigrants which has been encouraged by the comments of some Deputies, a work-permit system which is unworkable and proposals to fingerprint asylum seekers over the age of 14 and to introduce a demeaning voucher system for asylum seekers. In summary, we have a total and complete travesty.

Those are not my words. They are the words of Peter Finlay, SC, one of five Government appointed lawyers in the Independent Appeals Authority. I cannot let this debate pass without putting on record this scathing criticism of the current system by Mr. Finlay. He has characterised the system as trammelling the rights of asylum seekers, particularly by the lack of proper legal representation and he has made a very sensible call for an amnesty for asylum seekers already in the country, a call I fully endorse.

None of this negates my support for the basic principle underlying the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Bill. The exploitation of vulnerable people by unscrupulous traffickers in human misery is contemptible and needs to be stamped out. The Minister has the unanimous support of the House on that. This Bill is supposed to address the problem. However, because of its provisions and the context in which it comes before the House, the Bill is deeply problematic. I cannot, therefore, give it my support as it stands.

There are many unanswered questions in the Bill and in the Minister's speech. Do we have any idea of the true extent of trafficking? Do we know the proportion of asylum seekers who are brought here by such trafficking? The Minister stated that "taxis and private vehicles are daily travelling from Northern Ireland and discharging their illegal passengers in Dublin". We have no indication of the extent of this practice. I have not seen evidence of it on the N1 or the N2.

It is far from clear how this Bill, if enacted, will be enforced. It seems that the traffickers are outside the jurisdiction and it is difficult to see how they will be amenable to the new law. Legitimate concerns have been raised as to the possible use of these new powers against people who legitimately assist those fleeing persecution in other lands. Will they be used against people who seek to bring in other family members. The Minister presented the target of the Bill as organised trafficking in people for profit but the Bill creates the offence of organising or knowingly facilitating the entry of an illegal entrant. Knowingly facilitating is a vague term and could conceivably be used against individuals and groups who are genuinely assisting vulnerable people. The Minister has signalled that redrafting may be necessary here as his intention is to deal with commercial trafficking. I await with interest his amendments on Committee Stage.

One of the most alarming things in the Minister's speech was his statement that he is "considering whether it is necessary to impose responsibility on carriers to ensure that they bring to the State only those passengers who are legally entitled to come here and to provide for sanctions to punish carriers who fail to live up to this responsibility". I urge the Minister to drop this proposal. It is a recipe for disaster. It will require airlines and ferry companies to act as unofficial immigration officers, to turn people away from boats and planes or to turn back in mid-passage on suspicion that passengers may be illegal immigrants.

The Minister said that "if we wish to ensure the asylum process is fully functioning and available to those who need it we must protect it against those who would abuse it". I agree, but we do not have a fully functioning asylum process available to all who need it. In the words of the Minister's appointee, we have a "total and complete travesty".

This Bill needs to be reworked and to be brought back to the House, together with legislation based on a fair and just immigration policy which will allow people in numbers which can be determined to come to this State to work. We need the full implementation of the Refugee Bill, an end to deportations and an amnesty for those asylum seekers at present in the State. Until we have this just framework of policy and legislation I withhold support for the Bill.

I propose to share my time with Deputy Haughey.

Is that arrangement agreed? Agreed.

I welcome this opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate, particularly because in Helsinki today the European Council will be announcing the establishment of a new European body for the protection and promotion of fundamental human rights. I have been asked by the Taoiseach to be his representative on that body and our first meeting will take place next week in Brussels. The need for that body is very clear because the issues that have concerned us here for some time are not confined to this country. They are characteristic of all EU member states and our approach to this question must always be to embrace in the family of human rights in our jurisdiction those who seek or need refuge in our country and those who look to this country as a place where they can relaunch their lives in an atmosphere of economic opportunity and freedom from repression and injustice. The European body will be addressing these issues for some considerable time. Debates similar to those which have taken place here are taking place in every parliament in Europe, sometimes with a degree of venom which would make opinions expressed here seem very mild. Europeans must deal with this issue together.

The issue we deal with today is a very specific one. The offensively criminal elements who purport to make profit from the misery of people must be isolated, sanctioned and punished. The law has always held people of that sort in contempt and ensured that the strongest legal force was used to ensure that criminal elements would not be able to profit from the suffering or disadvantage of others. That is long established in all our laws and in terms of international co-operation this Bill is a necessary culmination of that principle. We have long had a law against living off immoral earnings which is directed at the lowest form of life; we refer to them as pimps who force young girls to engage in certain activities for the pimps' profit. They intimidate those young women.

The same is happening in this context and we should not close our eyes to it, although there appears to be a consensus on the issue in that regard. There are people on our streets – they are not targeted by this Bill – who are being forced and intimidated through criminal oppression to return funds to these outrageously offensive profiteers in human misery. If we want to ignore that, we can. However, anybody who is familiar with the scene knows that some of the youngsters and women on the streets are not necessarily begging for themselves. In most cases, they do it to pay off the extortionate demands of those who brought them to this country illegally.

This jurisdiction is based on fundamental rights and we are obliged to uphold them, regardless of what views we might have on nuances or differences. We must attack this trafficking at the source. That is what the Bill does and I am privileged to have had this opportunity to contribute to the debate on it.

I thank Deputy O'Kennedy for sharing his time.

The issues prior to the 1997 general election were unemployment, crime, taxation and the Northern Ireland peace process. These matters have, more or less, been resolved. Since then we have experienced unprecedented economic growth and the issues today are housing, traffic and transportation, child care, refugees and immigration.

In 1995, there were 424 asylum seekers in this country. In 1998, there were 4,626 asylum applications. Up to October of this year there were 5,497 applications. In October there were 1,000 applications. This cannot be ignored, and that is why this Bill is so important.

Internationally organised criminal elements are engaged in illegal trafficking of non-nationals for commercial gain. This cannot be tolerated. This problem was recognised at the European Council summit at Tampere and I welcome the wide range of measures agreed by the Council on justice and home affairs issues. I also welcome the appointment of Deputy O'Kennedy to the body he mentioned as a result of this Council meeting. The summit demonstrates that this problem has a European and international dimension. It is not an Irish problem which requires an Irish solution.

Ireland has no colonial tradition but it has a missionary tradition. It has a track record of helping poverty stricken countries. A new dimension to the problems faced by the Third World and eastern European countries is the associated movement of refugees and emigrants. This dimension has not yet been fully appreciated in this country. People who come here must be treated humanely and I believe that is what happens. In due course, refugees will be allowed to remain while illegal immigrants will be deported following fair procedures.

I congratulate the Minister on the humane regime he has put in place since 1997 and I condemn the chaos that existed prior to that. The Minister introduced a wide range of measures to deal with this. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to list them but they have been listed in previous debates. I welcome this new debate on refugees, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. It was sparked by my colleague, Deputy Callely, and the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, when they highlighted what is happening. However, the problem will not be solved by ideology. Some have claimed that this new influx of asylum seekers is exciting and will lead to a multicultural society. This type of thinking does not help. This is a practical problem requiring a practical response. Let us leave ideology out of it.

An open door policy, as is advocated by some, would be crazy. I endorse a previous statement by the Minister that all states need effective laws dealing with the entry, residence and departure of non-nationals in the interests of the wellbeing of society. He could not have said a truer word. There is a great deal more I could say on this subject but my time is up. There is genuine fear in the community, particularly in working class areas, which must be dealt with, but I will return to that and other topics on another day.

I thank Deputies for their contributions to the debate on this important Bill. The debate has ranged widely and touched on many facets of the immigration issue and the related issues of asylum and refugees. While it has strayed beyond the strict ambit of the Bill before the House, it was proper to review not only the proposals in the Bill but also the context in which the need for the Bill arose.

In recent weeks, I have given the House a comprehensive account of our immigration and asylum policy and law, including the measures the Government has put in place to deal with the significant increase in asylum seekers which we have witnessed in recent years. The purpose of this legislation is to deal with those who seek to exploit asylum seekers and other immigrants by engaging in the despicable trade of trafficking. Our legislative framework is deficient because there is insufficient power to enable the State to deal with traffickers.

The Bill seeks to address that deficiency by criminalising the activity of traffickers and providing for ancillary and necessary powers. Few people could contend that this legislation is unnecessary. To do so would be to refuse to face reality. Traffickers are targeting this country. There is broad support in the House for the aim of the Bill although Deputies have pointed to improvements they consider necessary. I am grateful for this support and I will consider all suggestions as sympathetically as possible.

All states need effective laws to deal with the entry, residence and departure of non-nationals in the interest of what I once described as the wellbeing of society. This Bill is intended to act as an aid to the proper exercise of such control. It does not, and is not intended, to penalise the victims of such traffic. If the victims are asylum seekers, their applications will be processed in accordance with the procedures we have put in place. The Bill does not change the rights and duties of an asylum applicant.

A number of Deputies, including Deputies Howlin and Higgins, were concerned that the Bill should not encompass the humanitarian activities of bona fide persons or organisations who assist asylum seekers. The Oskar Schindlers of this world have been mentioned as the type of people whose activities should not be criminalised. I do not intend to criminalise the activities of those who, for humanitarian reasons, help genuine asylum seekers. Such activity is not and never was the focus of the Bill. A number of Deputies also appeared to believe that the Bill would criminalise the activities of family and friends who simply help those close to them to come to this State. While I do not condone acts of illegality, such action, like the humanitarian assistance to which I have already referred, is not the focus of the Bill.

The target is the profit seeking trafficker. I intend to make this crystal clear in the Bill. I have asked the parliamentary draftsman to consider this issue with a view to introducing an appropriate amendment or amendments on Committee Stage.

Either the Opposition has a short memory when it comes to my record on human rights legislation or it is so obsessed with the issue it overlooks the unprecedented progress I have made on legislation in this area. I recently introduced the Human Rights Commission Bill, one of the most significant human rights measures ever to come before the Oireachtas. The Employment Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination in the workplace on a wide range of grounds has been enacted despite the failure of the previous Government to produce constitutional legislation in this area, a comment which also applies to the Equal Status Bill before the House. In the wide range of criminal justice legislation I have introduced, I have given priority to the fundamental human right of ordinary law-abiding people to be protected from the activity of criminals while at the same time maintaining the balance between the rights of accused persons and their victims, which is a hallmark of any civilised society.

A misconception seems to exist among Opposition Deputies that Ireland is the only country which exercises control over non-nationals who wish to come here. Much of what passes for debate in the media on immigration issues is badly informed and takes no account of the wider international context, especially the fact that all States exercise control on immigration. Deputy Higgins is naive if he thinks that countries such as the United States of America impose no such controls because they do.

(Mayo): They have quotas. We have none.

The USA has carrier's liability in addition to strict immigration controls. Anyone who goes through US pre-entry clearance at Dublin or Shannon Airport would know all about this. It is often said that Ireland has no immigration policy and that we must develop such a policy. However, we have an immigration policy, and it is on broadly similar lines to the policies followed by the UK and our other EU partners.

Deputy Mitchell welcomed the Bill but was concerned that it would be unfair to criminalise the truck driver who does not check his vehicle and ends up bringing asylum seekers or stowaways into the country. Deputy Gormley seemed to think the Bill provided for on-the-spot fines for taxi drivers. It does not. What the Bill provides is that, to commit a trafficking offence, a person must organise or knowingly facilitate the entry of an illegal immigrant to the country, and he or she must know or have reasonable cause to believe the person is an illegal immigrant. While there may be a need to examine the responsibility of transporters to check their vehicles for stowaways, such responsibility is not the focus of section 2.

Deputy Hayes was concerned about the provisions of section 5 relating to the issue of search warrants to a member of the Garda Síochána by a judge of the District Court. The wording of section 5 is not new. It mirrors provisions relating to entry, search and seizure in other legislation in respect of certain serious offences, for example, the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1997, and the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998. One of the recommendations of the report of the expert group appointed to consider changes in the criminal law and echoed in the Garda SMI report was that this type of power should be available for all serious offences. I am considering this recommendation.

Concern has also been expressed that the Refugee Act should be brought into effect as soon as possible. Work is advancing apace in my Department towards the full implementation of that Act, and it involves the preparation of the necessary regulations to ensure the smooth running of the asylum system on a statutory basis as well as the process of recruiting the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the chairperson of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal. As regards the latter post, the policy intention, that it be a non-Civil Service position, may not, according the advice available to me, be fully achieved by the existing wording of the Refugee Act. I will accordingly bring forward by way of amendment to the Bill on Committee Stage, a minor technical amendment to that Act to clarify the matter as well as any other necessary amendments to ensure the full and effective implementation of the Act. I expect the preparatory work and the recruitment process will be completed in time for me to make the orders commencing the Refugee Act soon.

The difficulties which became apparent recently arising from the increase in asylum applications have once again been stressed. I have already indicated the measures the Government is taking to ensure we have the resources to provide services of a high standard to these applicants. We are doing this with full commitment to ensure the dignity and welfare of applicants. However, we must also underpin our approach with strict measures to ensure our country's generosity is not abused. The Bill is one such measure. Anyone who has dealt with genuine refugees will know how important it is that the exceptional channel outside normal immigration rules designed for those genuinely fleeing persecution is kept open for such people and is not allowed to be used by the traffickers to flout our immigration laws. The issue of immigration and asylum is the subject of discussion at Government level at present. As part of that process, I will shortly submit proposals which will inform the basis of Government decisions on future policy and strategy in this area.

I thank Deputies for their constructive contributions. Some contributions were not constructive and appeared to have been based on false premises.

(Dublin West): Especially the Minister's.

Many people could be forgiven for believing the months between December 1994 and June 1997 represented some class of golden era for asylum seekers in Ireland. They could also be forgiven for believing that the facilities in place for asylum seekers who came to this country during the brief life of the previous Government should be regarded as being state of the art, a paragon against which all subsequent facilities, national and international, could be unfavourably compared. The same people could be forgiven for believing that the resources, both monetary and political, assigned to asylum seekers by the previous Administration have been slashed by the Government. A concerted drive has been launched to portray the Government as an Administration which has turned off a tap of plentiful resources for asylum seekers which had been left freely flowing by the previous Administration. Nothing is further from the truth.

Any independent and dispassionate evaluation establishes beyond contradiction that every area of governmental endeavour relating to asylum seekers was treated with a mixture of aloof disdain and indifferent incompetence by the previous Administration. When action was within its power, it chose inaction. Now that its members have regained their preferred position of comfortable incapacity on the Opposition benches, they seek to suggest that less resources are now deployed than when they were in a position to make decisions. The people who seek to turn the spotlight of criticism on the Government brought prolonged and practised paralysis to bear on the situation when they were in a position to act. Those who refused to inch forward now choose to criticise the strides we have taken.

I have no intention of accepting criticism from those whose lack of vision and effort did so much to create the problems which confronted asylum seekers and the Government in June 1997. I have no intention of subscribing to the illusionary orthodoxy now being peddled by the Neros of the 1990s and their acolytes that the problem with asylum seekers started when the people selected a Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government. Like must be compared with like, effort with effort and endeavour with endeavour. If this is to be an honest and open debate and not a cynical exercise in political opportunism, it is appropriate that we compare the work of the Government regarding asylum seekers with the work of the previous Administration. It is important we compare the resources put in place by the Government and contrast them with the resources allocated by the previous Administration. It is also important that we seek out and examine what, if any, alternative plan is being proffered by those who express dissatisfaction with the actions of the Government.

The hard statistics establish beyond dispute that no Government in the history of the State has deployed resources to the extent that this Administration has. Facts as opposed to prejudices and innuendo establish that the commitment of the Government surpasses that of any previous Administration. Utilising any recognisable criterion to compare the work of this Administration to the work of its predecessor regarding asylum seekers, it will be seen that this Administration is more committed, has deployed greater numbers of civil servants, has provided greater resources and has dealt with greater numbers than those who now seek to criticise.

Is it perhaps the case that those who were bereft of ideas when in Government have worked assiduously in Opposition and now seek to present what eluded them in office, namely, a coherent plan which addresses the needs of asylum seekers and the administrative difficulties presented by their arrival? Unfortunately it is not. The same lack of vision and ability which heralded the departure of the previous Administration from office still afflicts its members' attitudes to asylum seekers. When in office, they did not know what to do, so they did nothing. No one knew of what they were in favour nor to what they were opposed. They stood for nothing so they did nothing. They are entitled to praise only for the consistency of their effort.

Perhaps one example in the course of this debate and the debate on the motion of no confidence serves to best illustrate the confusion of the Opposition. The leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Quinn, said deportations were necessary. The president for life of the Labour Party, Deputy De Rossa, said he opposed deportations. I did not hear Deputy De Rossa voice concern when people were deported to Siberia, but he is against deportations to Holyhead.

Question put and declared carried.
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