Detention centres. Flotels. These are some of the so-called solutions to the refugee problem that are being bandied around today. That we are even discussing the idea of interning asylum-seekers or cramming them onto virtual prison ships is appalling. What are we doing wasting our energy discussing outrageous ideas like these when we have 10,000 people who need looking after? What our asylum-seekers need is what anyone needs: suitable accommodation, a job, a decent income, legal status and social security entitlements.
Meanwhile, our Ministers and civil servants are working furiously to entice people from overseas, both Irish emigrants and foreign nationals, to come and settle here to counteract acute staffing shortages in our manufacturing and services industries. Are we plain stupid or are we just too clever for our own good?
Denying asylum-seekers the right to work (unless they have been here for a full year, prior to July 1999) is a clever strategy, because as long as they are not working we can demonise them as spongers. First, we force them to become spongers by not allowing them to work, then we blame them for sponging off our economy and we turn them into a problem instead of a resource.
But that strategy is too clever by half. It has well and truly backfired on us, and now we find ourselves in the ludicrous situation that we are looking for several thousand workers to fulfil the needs of the economy while we have 10,000 asylum-seekers in forced idleness, many of them willing, able and trained to take up work, but not allowed to do so.
Why have we allowed ourselves to get into this situation? What is it about the Irish people, that we can't respond with generosity and imagination to the needs of people who are in trouble, as asylum-seekers undoubtedly are?
It's not an innate lack of generosity - we are very quick to respond to the needs of people suffering famine or the results of natural disasters in developing world countries, and rightly so. But sending money to the developing world at times of crisis is a comfortable way of meeting our responsibilities. It fulfils a need in ourselves to feel generous, while keeping the objects of our generosity at a safe distance where they can present no threat to us.
Why can't we push that impetus to generosity a bit further along? Why can't we welcome people who flee in terror from persecution in their own countries, especially at a time when we desperately need an influx of workers?
It seems we are terrified of being ripped off. We can't bear the thought that people might be coming here to take advantage of us - never mind that we have a long history of economic emigration ourselves, never mind that so many of our citizens were, and in some cases still are, working and living illegally in the United States that we had to ask for special provision to be made for them.
And so, for fear of being taken advantage of, we minimise the advantages that immigrants might expect to enjoy, by making life as difficult as possible for people seeking asylum here. We've introduced a modern version of the Poor Law for asylum-seekers. We put them up in unsuitable holiday-type accommodation either in Dublin or around the State - 800 to 900 asylum-seekers have been compulsorily dispersed already - and we force them to accept full board and a miserable allowance of £15 a week, instead of giving them the dignity of a social welfare allowance (£72 a week) and the right to make their own decisions on how to spend it.
Those who voluntarily leave the full-board accommodation provided for them by the State and try to rent a flat or house are likely to be deprived of their rent allowance and are also unlikely to qualify for full supplementary welfare allowance. In other words, asylum-seekers in this State have no right to freedom of movement and freedom of choice in even the most basic decisions. They are in effect imprisoned by the system, even if we have not yet stooped to interning them in detention centres.
Furthermore, we do absolutely nothing about educating communities into which asylum-seekers are settled, with the result that people's natural suspicions of the foreign and the unusual and the new are not allayed, which in turn creates more difficulties for refugee families trying to find their feet.
On top of that we make it extremely difficult for people to gain refugee status: 90 to 95 per cent are refused at the first interview, and the appeals process is long and arduous - taking between 10 and 16 months. In 1992 only seven people got refugee status; the numbers increased over the next few years, hitting a peak of 172 in 1996; and then a decline set in, with only 30 people gaining refugee status in 1999. In total, only 500 people have received refugee status in Ireland, leaving 10,000 people without rights/status.
The figures show we are not exactly being overrun - so why is it perceived as such a problem? Why are we talking about floodgates and inundation? What is the panic about? Certainly there is one very real problem, because we have an accommodation crisis, but apart from that, which we certainly have to address, there really is no refugee problem here. Yet we see it as some enormous threat to our national identity and our national stability.
I think it has at least partly to do with our view of ourselves as a people. People whose national identity feels a bit fragile to begin with are likely to perceive threats to it around every corner. In some ways, we might say we have an almost overdeveloped sense of our national identity - we are certainly very quick to boast about our highly educated young people, our sporting and artistic successes and our booming economy - but that in itself is surely a sign of a level of underlying national self-doubt.
We haven't come to terms yet with ourselves as world citizens. We're still fighting old psychological wars; we're still living out old patterns of behaviour. We congratulate ourselves on our commitment to Europe, but we have never really grasped what it means to be Europeans.
We have understood it in terms of what we could take from Europe, but we have never even discussed what we can give and share with Europe, much less with the rest of the world. The reality is this: we are a rich State by any standard and as such we have a moral responsibility to share our wealth with our own people and with others.
It is certainly true that we are in the midst of a housing crisis and this is not a problem that can be solved overnight. We have the financial resources to solve it, but there is also the serious problem of land and manpower. We should not lose sight of the fact, however, that the accommodation crisis we are now facing is not some sort of natural disaster that has been visited on us. It is the result of an appalling lack of planning and of bad planning by successive governments.
In spite of labour and land shortages, however, we can put a proper house-building programme in place if we really want to and make decent, suitable, affordable accommodation available for our own homeless population, those on our ever-lengthening housing waiting lists, and those who come here looking for peace and asylum.
We have the resources and the ability to integrate 10,000 refugees into our society if we choose to do so - all we need is the will. What we need now is an honest and unambiguous statement from Government on a new policy towards refugees. Such a statement needs to declare that Ireland sees compassionate and generous treatment of refugees as a responsibility and an opportunity rather than a burden. We need a clear statement on the number of refugees Ireland is prepared to welcome, to whom we will offer full citizenship with the right to education, work, accommodation, welfare and integration into our society.
We also need a national education programme to ensure the public are fully aware of the situation with regard to asylum-seekers and refugees, and we need a solution to the housing crisis and a statement on how the Government plans to combat it in a way that is responsible, inclusive and compassionate.
At the same time we need to put in place a clear programme for the reception of asylum-seekers and a clear process of assessment to ensure their status is clarified within three to six months. While awaiting assessment, asylum-seekers need to be cared for in small, well-resourced reception centres, dispersed throughout our cities and towns. These centres should provide support, safety, security and compassion and ensure that asylum-seekers are treated with the dignity that every person deserves. Then, those who are granted refugee status should be given the accommodation and other resources and facilities they need to be properly integrated as full citizens of our society.
If we do this, if we make an open and positive commitment to refugees and if we plan properly for their integration, we will not only be responding compassionately to the needs of persecuted people and fulfilling our national obligations, but we will ourselves be gaining immense benefits, spiritually as well as materially.
And we might finally have grown up as a nation.
Sister Stanislaus Kennedy is president of Focus Ireland.