Asylum-seekers should be allowed to work if they are waiting an undue length of time for decisions on their applications for refugee status, according to a senior official in the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Ms Pia Prutz Phiri, the UNHCR's senior liaison officer in Dublin, says if asylum procedures are dragging on, applicants should automatically be entitled to seek a job.
In her first newspaper interview since taking up the post last July, Ms Prutz Phiri says the UNHCR does not have a position on how soon asylum-seekers should be granted the right to work. "I would think it should be the shortest time possible, but I do believe that for refugees, the issues of gaining dignity and control of your life, which in any case is what many had before they left their countries, is extremely important and in the long run can only benefit Ireland." A limited number of asylum-seekers are allowed to work here under a scheme which ended last summer. Those who are recognised as refugees are automatically entitled to work.
Applications for refugee status take between four months and two years to process, although officials are working towards a target of six months. There is a backlog of more than 12,500 cases and between 700 and 1,000 people have applied for asylum each month this year.
Ms Prutz Phiri says the recent positive experience of refugees from Kosovo hosted in Ireland should help "deflate the fear that if you allow somebody to work, they will never go home." Out of about 1,031 Kosovan refugees who fled the war there last year, all but 142 have been voluntarily repatriated.
Ms Prutz Phiri, who has trained as a lawyer, is satisfied that Ireland's legal framework for handling asylum claims fulfils its obligations under international law.
This month she begins training up to 100 officials and lawyers on many issues relevant to refugee status determination. She welcomes the Government's multi-million pound antiracism campaign and looks for ward to co-operating with the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, which drew it up.
Recently she visited reception centres for asylum-seekers in Galway, Cork and Westmeath, as a guest of the Government. She was impressed with living standards, as well as attitudes of proprietors, support groups and Government officials.
"It's key that asylum-seekers are able to access quickly where their cases are in the system and so communication, I believe, is very important." Asked whether there is a problem with such communication, she replies: "I think it's an area that could do with some attention."
A Danish national, Ms Prutz Phiri has been with the UNHCR for 16 years, with postings in Zambia, Turkey, Nordic and Baltic states, South Africa and Kenya. "The numbers of asylum-seekers arriving into Ireland remain small compared to even other parts of Europe," she says. "They are certainly small when compared to many parts of Africa." She cites Zambia, one of the poorest countries in the world, where the numbers arriving in Ireland in a year can arrive in a day from Angola.
If asylum-seekers are arriving in Ireland, she says, it is because "people are being persecuted. It's because the world is still suffering from civil wars, indiscriminate killing and oppression, and Europe and Ireland clearly will have to take its responsibility."
Ms Prutz Phiri says the UNHCR faces a shortfall of $150 million in funding this year and has had to cut assistance to internally displaced people in Sri Lanka and non-vital projects in many parts of Africa.
Appeals have been made to the international community to increase funding for UNHCR activities.
Various governments, including Ireland's, have said they will consider an increase.
She hopes Ireland will also consider increasing its annual quota of refugees under the UNHCR's resettlement programme. Ireland's quota for this year under this programme is 10 cases, which includes family units. This compares with 500 a year in Denmark and about 1,000 in Sweden.