asked the Minister for Justice if he will state in respect of each of the last five years the number of applications for political asylum (a) received and (b) granted, stating the names of the countries from which asylum was sought.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Application for Political Asylum.
127.
Mr. Ryan
No statistics of this kind are kept but, perhaps, a statement on the matter would help to clarify the position.
In regard to political asylum, it is necessary to distinguish between those whose life or liberty is in some positive danger by reason of persecution in their own country and persons who, often no doubt for good reason, dislike the regime under which they live but whose position may be no different from that of millions of their countrymen. Again, it is necessary to distinguish between a request from a person who is fleeing from his own country and who, if refused admission at the frontier, is thereby compelled to return to his own country, and a request from a person who is already in a free country and who merely seeks to move from that country to another one.
Because of our geographical location, we have extremely few requests for political asylum from persons claiming that their life or liberty is in particular danger in their own country and who are in a position that refusal of their request would result in their being compelled to return to their own country. I should make clear, perhaps, that even in such a case there can be no guarantee that asylum will be granted, though it is the practice to grant it where the applicant's story is believed to be genuine. The application may be rejected either because there is no reason to believe that the applicant is in any danger or because there is good reason to think that it is not a bona fide application but one pre-arranged by the authorities of the country from which he pretends to be seeking asylum.
Apart from that category, which, of course, is the one which is generally thought of in the context of appeals for political asylum, we in this country get from time to time applications from or on behalf of persons in one or other of the following categories:
(a) persons living in some country whose freedom is restricted,
(b) persons who normally live in such a country but who have left it ostensibly on a visit to some other country and who would prefer not to return, and
(c) persons who have permanently left such a country but have not been resettled elsewhere.
In dealing with persons in these categories, it is necessary to bear in mind that this is an emigration country and that, with all the goodwill in the world, it is impossible for us to accept even a significant fraction of those who, given the chance, would no doubt seek to come here. Relative to our resources, our record in this respect has been very good, but it would be unrealistic not to recall the difficulties we had in finding suitable outlets for the Hungarian refugees some years ago and, indeed, it was necessary, in the end, for the great majority of them to emigrate.
It is necessary also to bear in mind in this context that there are no physical restrictions on travel between Britain and this country and the number of visitors to Britain is such that if we were to allow to remain here anybody who, having entered Britain, crossed from there, alleging that he did not like the regime in his own country and wanted what he called "political asylum", we would, of course, immediately have on our hands a problem completely beyond our resources.