Right of refugees to work backed

The campaign to allow asylumseekers the right to work while the applications for permission to stay are processed won the support yesterday of the Minister of State for overseas development, Ms Liz O'Donnell.

Ms O'Donnell said asylumseekers waiting to have their cases heard for longer than six months should be allowed to take up employment. Preventing them from doing so was "counter-productive" and served to foster a "dependency culture".

"The fact that asylum-seekers are prohibited from working means that many of them tend to be labelled as scroungers," Ms O'Donnell said. She was speaking at the launch of the Irish Aid annual report for 1997.

The Minister pointed to a number of measures the Department of Foreign Affairs was co-ordinating to counteract racism and help refugees integrate into Irish society. Priority was being attached to antiracism education, particularly in urban areas where large numbers of asylum-seekers were concentrated. A major awareness campaign is being planned to inform the public about the global issues in development which give rise to the flow of asylum-seekers into Ireland.

Ms O'Donnell said she was examining proposals for the creation of a national refugee agency to provide language training, job skills and help with integration for all refugees. In addition, an inter-departmental group of civil servants is working on proposals relating to immigration, citizenship and asylum matters.

The Irish Aid report details spending this year of £137 million, or 0.32 per cent of gross national product, on emergency and development projects, mostly in the poorest countries of Africa. This compares to £124 million, or 0.31 per cent of GNP, last year.

The Minister restated her commitment to increasing overseas aid to a target of 0.45 per cent of GNP within the lifetime of the present Government. There was strong democratic support for "sharing the fruits of our current success" with the developing world. However, she conceded that aid levels were still "a long way off" the declared target, largely because Ireland's GNP has been growing so fast.

The Government's target is still much lower than the United Nations recommended minimum level of aid of 0.7 per cent. However, currently Ireland is virtually the only western state which is increasing rather than cutting its aid budget.

Ms O'Donnell said Ireland would act to help relieve the crippling burden of debt faced by many poor countries.

Throughout Africa, relieving the debt of the most heavily indebted countries could help save the lives of 21 million children by 2000, the Minister pointed out.

The biggest recipient of Irish aid last year was Ethiopia.