Carriers could face fines over asylum-seekers

SEANAD REPORT: Asylum-seekers would be prevented from seeking refuge in Ireland under a proposed law introducing fines for airlines and ferry companies caught transporting undocumented migrants to the State, the Seanad heard last night.

Opposition senators said the Immigration Bill 2002, which imposes on-the-spot fines of €1,500 on carriers bringing passengers to Ireland who do not fulfil immigration requirements, would transfer the responsibility for immigration controls to private companies such as airlines.

Labour senator Ms Kathleen O'Meara said the bill would inevitably make it harder for genuine asylum-seekers who do enter the country legally. Ms O'Meara said we had to be mindful of our responsibilities in relation to asylum-seekers.

Senators discussed several amendments to the bill proposed by the Labour Party, including a provision that carriers would not face fines if the undocumented migrants they had transported were seeking or proposing to seek asylum in Ireland.

The bill as proposed makes it an offence to carriers to transport into the State migrants without valid passports or equivalent documents and visas if necessary, regardless of their asylum status.

Senator Ms Joanna Tuffy from the Labour Party said the aim of this amendment was to allow asylum-seekers to actually get into the State. "The way it's phrased now it could actually prevent asylum-seekers getting to this country," she added.

Fianna Fáil senator, Mr Martin Mansergh, questioned how genuine an asylum-seeker on false documentation was. "Isn't there a contradiction there?" he asked. Several Labour Party senators took issue with this comment, pointing out that often asylum-seekers who left the country under threat of death had no documents.

Senator Ms Sheila Terry from Fine Gael said the bill was aimed at reducing the numbers of people seeking asylum in the country and she was concerned about "genuine" cases who would be denied protection.

The Minister said we could not ask every check-in desk to be a mini-tribunal which tries to work out if people are genuine or non-genuine asylum-seekers. To allow people to avoid having documentation by telling airline check-in staff that they claimed to seek asylum when they arrived in Dublin would make the country a "sitting duck", he added.

He asked whether Ireland should be the only EU member-state without carriers' liability legislation. Urging senators to face realities, he said: "If I said you don't incur liability where a person says they wish to claim asylum, there would be no point in having this law because everybody would breeze on to a plane with a little card that says 'I want to claim asylum in Ireland'."

Mr McDowell indicated that one of the balancing mechanisms he intended introducing was to receive refugees under a United Nations-sponsored programme, people whose status as refugees was not in doubt.

Labour senator Mr Derek McDowell said he resented this description, adding that he did not accept that only properly documented asylum-seekers would be able to get to Ireland as "we know that very many are not documented".

Earlier, Opposition senators took exception to the bill's provision that private carriers, such as individuals driving cars, would be subject to the legislation.

Labour senator Mr Brendan Ryan said it was not reasonable that the driver of a car who was a holiday maker carrying a passenger who had forgotten their passport should face an on-the-spot fine of €1,500. The party proposed an amendment to restrict the provisions in the bill to commercial vehicles only.