Sir, - The Immigration Bill, 1999, is currently before both houses of the Oireachtas. The Bill is a combination of measures. Its primary purpose is to re-enact the powers of the Minister of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to deport foreign nationals; powers denied him by the Supreme Court in the Laurentiu ruling. Secondly it incorporates an amended version of the 1996 Refugee Act, shelved in 1997. Both pieces of legislation are now to be combined into a single Bill, the Immigration Bill.
The Irish Refugee Council notes that the Bill places asylum law under the remit of an immigration bill. Immigration is an entirely separate issue from asylum. While immigrants move from one country to another for a variety of reasons, typically asylum-seekers are forced to flee their country of origin because of persecution.
There is, it seems, enormous public confusion and misunderstanding as to the distinction between immigration and asylum. This is bound to be further compounded by the fact that both issues are now being dealt with in a single piece of legislation. While the initial portion of the Immigration Bill deals with procedures for the deportation of persons illegally in the State, the latter portion deals with the procedures for applications for asylum in the State.
Asylum procedures are now to be put on a statutory footing, a development welcomed by all groups campaigning on behalf of refugees and asylum-seekers. However, the haste with which the Bill was pushed through Committee stage of the Oireachtas is of some concern. The Justice, Equality and Women's Rights Committee convened just three times in the last two weeks to debate the proposed amendments to the Bill. No oral submissions were heard nor were all the amendments moved by the Committee members even discussed in Committee. It was simply guillotined and forced through.
In 1996, the Rainbow Government passed the Refugee Act, an amended version of which now forms the latter part of the current Immigration Bill. The Minister has emphasised the urgency of passing the current Bill into law before the summer recess. This seems ironic in light of the fact that The Refugee Act of 1996 lay largely unimplemented for close to three years while the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform operated asylum policy on an administrative and ad hoc basis.
While we are not questioning the right of the State to deport per se, it is essential that legislation dealing with asylum procedures, and consequently with human rights, be given the breathing space in which all amendments and clarification are fully dealt with at Committee stage. The placing of asylum and immigration matters in a single bill and the undue haste with which the Bill was pushed through Committee stage militates against this outcome.
The idea of having Oireachtas Committees is that members of the Dail, the Seanad, non-governmental agencies and other relevant representative bodies are given access to the making of legislation which concerns and directly affects them. The extensive consultation between the Committee for Justice, Equality and Women's Rights and representative groups with respect to the legislation governing the Human Rights Commission show how the Committee system can, and has been effective. It would follow that equal attention be paid to asylum law. This has plainly not been the case. - Yours, etc., Derek Stewart Chairperson,
Irish Refugee Council, Donncha O'Connell, Director, Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Siobhan Phelan, Chairperson, Free Legal Advice Centres, Fr Frank Sammon, Country Director, Jesuit Refugee Service, Dr Colin Harvey, Refugee Co-ordinator, Amnesty International, Dublin, Robin Hannon, Director, Comhlamh, Dier Tong, Director, Association for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Ireland.