`Inertia' behind refugee crisis

Administrative paralysis in the Government, rather than the arrival of asylum-seekers, has created the refugee crisis, according to an authority on refugee law.

Government inertia has also facilitated the abuse of the asylum procedure by illegal immigrants, says Ms Rosemary Byrne, a law lecturer in TCD. "The failure of authorities to make expeditious and fair determinations [in asylum cases] invites those with no valid claim to asylum to enter and remain in Ireland for a prolonged period of time," she says.

Ms Byrne's comments, made in a new book on discrimination law to be published today, coincide with figures issued by the Department of Justice. These show that 3,883 asylum-seekers were registered last year.

This compares with 1,179 the previous year and 424 in 1995. Numbers have increased 100-fold in five years: in 1992, just 39 applications for asylum were received.

Ms Byrne says the figures are "staggering" in the Irish context, but "comparatively light" compared to other EU countries. Denmark, for example, had 5,870 applications in 1996, five times as many as Ireland in that year.

However, the delays in the system have imposed a heavy burden on the State which has to foot the bill for asylum-seekers.

"As the Government fails to identify those most in need of protection within a reasonable time framework, so too has it allowed those with no valid claim under the Refugee Act to remain in the State, fuelling misinformed intolerance towards the broader asylum community."

Writing in Developments in Dis- crimination Law in Ireland and Europe, Ms Byrne says there is a danger that Ireland will mistakenly substitute flawed EU procedures for fundamental internat ional human right obligations.

The Department's overall figure for 1997 disguises a slowdown in the second half of the year. Last summer asylum applications peaked at about 100 a week, but after new immigration controls were imposed at ports and border crossings, this figure dropped to about 50 a week.

The five countries which account for most asylum-seekers are Romania, Zaire, Nigeria, Algeria and Somalia.

Department figures show that 512 cases were processed last year, compared to 260 in 1996. At the end of the year, however, the backlog of cases was greater than ever, at 4,075. The imminent appointment of over 70 new staff is expected to speed up the processing of cases.

Of the 512 cases in which decisions were made, 208 resulted in refugee status being awarded. Some 304 asylum-seekers had their applications turned down, but 120 of these were given permission to remain in Ireland on humanitarian grounds.

All those asylum-seekers whose applications were rejected have lodged appeals and are still in the State. A Department spokesman says "no more than a handful" of people had been deported in 1997.