A chara, - I act as solicitor for a number of asylum-seekers but write as a citizen. Those who confidently distinguish between so called "genuine" and "bogus" asylum-seekers ignore the reality that the criteria for refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention are technical and restrictive.
For example, a family fleeing a war in fear of getting killed in the general destruction, though clearly refugees in layman's terms, will have great difficulty being recognised as refugees under the Convention. To refer to them as "bogus" is unreal.
But surely, it is argued, there is an absolute distinction between "genuine" asylum-seekers and mere economic immigrants. Actually, it's not so simple. A desire to better oneself is not exclusive of a genuine fear of persecution.
Take for example a young man in Algiers. Beaten up routinely by the police in the course of their investigations into suspected "Islamist" activities - an increasingly handy bogey word for use by oppressive regimes and their apologists in the West - he also happens to be unemployed, with no prospect of a job, as the Algerian generals and their Western corporate partners engage in a mutually beneficial privatisation of the Algerian economy with resulting lay-offs. Our young Algerian decides to get out and ends up in Ireland. That his departure may have been motivated in part by his dire economic situation at home does not negate his fear of persecution by the police. Moreover, his economic motivation, while not sufficient for recognition under the Convention, is inseparable from the political context of an army nomenklatura self-servingly embracing the tenets of neo-liberal economics.
To assert a clear-cut distinction between "genuine" asylum seekers on the one hand and "bogus" asylum-seekers and economic immigrants on the other is nice and tidy and allows us to pay lip-service to our obligations under international law. But it ignores the narrow nature of the term "refugee" under the 1951 Convention and, more importantly, it ignores the reality of now political and economic injustice are inextricably linked. The distinction, as deployed in the debate so far, is itself largely bogus. Its purpose, I suspect, has been to soften us up for the mass deportations which will soon commence - once the legislation has been passed to drastically restrict the rights of asylum seekers to apply to the High Court for judicial review - probably during July and August when, co-incidentally, most solicitors and barristers are away on holidays. - Yours, etc.,
Conor O'Briain, Sraid an tSeanteampail, Baile Atha Cliath 7.