The introduction this week of the Dublin Convention in 12 European states marks a new level of co-operation within the EU. The convention is designed to prevent asylum-seekers "hopscotching" from one country to another when their original application for asylum within the Union is rejected. Non-EU nationals will be able to apply for asylum in one member-state, usually the first one they arrive in; if this fails, they can be sent back to the country they came from. So far, so good. It is desirable that EU states co-ordinate their procedures in this regard. It is also important to put in place effective procedures which separate genuine refugee cases from economic migrants. States have a right to decide who can live within their territory. They have an obligation to taxpayers to keep spending on refugees properly targeted and within acceptable levels.
The problem is that Ireland, alone of all the EU states, has had no laws governing the treatment of refugees. Legislation in the related area of aliens control dates back to the 1930s, when the main concern was to keep spies out of neutral Ireland. There is no independent apparatus to examine asylum applications, and there won't be until proposals to this effect in the 1996 Refugee Act are implemented. At least the convention allows for an appeal in cases where it is decided that an asylum application in Ireland will be transferred to another EU state. This was markedly absent from the procedures which were in force over the past two months. These made no provision for any outside involvement, whether this was a lawyer or interpreter, and made no allowance in cases where family members were already living in Ireland.
But the implementation of an EU convention should be no substitute for national legislation. The first attempt at refugee legislation appeared in the Dail as long ago as 1994. A Refugee Act was finally passed by the Oireachtas in June 1996, but has been left to gather dust ever since. The Act may need some minor modification to take account of the increase in asylumseekers coming here since it was first conceived. But the core principle of the legislation - to afford asylumseekers an independent, thorough and speedy examination of their application - is as valid as it ever was. So the Act should be implemented as soon as possible. When this is done, it will be time to examine the Aliens Act, which dates from 1935, to take account of EU membership and the post-Cold War world. The Government appears to regard the refugee issue as an immigration matter only. By keeping unwanted immigrants out, it hopes the problem will go away. Even if this were to happen - and given the huge increase in mobility and world trade, this is unlikely to be so - such an approach would constitute an excessively narrow response to the issue. Barely one quarter of the countries of the world are democratic, and almost 80 states practice torture, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that so many people are fleeing persecution. Nor can the refugee issue be tackled by purely legislative means. The debate is as much about ourselves as about the asylum-seekers who increasingly want to come here. What kind of Ireland do we want for the new millennium? Is it to be a multi-cultural society? If so, how is this inclusiveness to be achieved? The debate on these issues has hardly begun.