The Human Rights Bill due to be published shortly will impose additional obligations on the State in the way it deals with asylum-seekers, a conference on refugee and asylum law in Ireland was told yesterday.
The Bill would finally see the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights in Irish law, Mr Rory Brady SC, chairman of the Bar Council, said. The conference in Dublin focused on the recent changes introduced for dealing with refugee and asylum-seekers. The Government's efforts to streamline the current system would end in failure in the absence of a formal State "migration policy", Mr Bill Shipsey SC predicted.
Mr Shipsey disagreed with the comments of Mr Brian Ingoldsby, a principal officer in the Department of Justice's Civil Law Reform division, who had challenged what he called "the serious misinformation being put about that no provision is in place for people coming here on economic grounds".
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment had issued over 18,000 work permits for non-European Economic Area nationals in 2000 "and refused a mere 373 applications", Mr Ingoldsby said.
Mr Shipsey, however, insisted the current system was far from adequate in this regard, a view shared by the Labour Party TD, Mr Brendan Howlin, who asked whether the vast majority of these work permits related to North American applicants.
The civil servant did not have hard figures to hand but was confident that some 10 per cent related to sub-Saharan applicants.
The statutory basis for immigration policy, the Aliens Act, 1935, was now "showing its age", said the Department of Justice official, in response to the concerns voiced earlier.
It was no longer effective as an instrument of Government policy or for protecting the rights of people. The Minister, Mr O'Donoghue, proposed to bring forward comprehensive legislation to replace the Aliens Act, he said.