Would the money spent by the State on hosting asylum-seekers in Ireland be better spent helping their home nations to develop politically and economically?
Should the Geneva Convention recommend refugee status for people who are being persecuted by groups other than their own state? Does allowing asylum-seekers to leave their own countries undermine those countries' ability to develop in the long term?
These were the issues debated at last Monday's Irish Times Colleges' Debate final, hosted by the Philosophical Society in UCC.
The motion - "This house would deport all refugees" - posed grave difficulties for the teams and individuals who had to propose it. Most proposition speakers had to espouse positions they would vehemently oppose in the normal course of events. Kicking off the debate, Vincent Nolan of the King's Inns said his team would only grant refugee status to asylum-seekers whose "particular life is under direct and imminent threat". People seeking asylum for other political and economic reasons should be immediately deported, he argued.
The political situations in places such as Kosovo and Burundi could not be solved by any policy on refugees, no matter how liberal, he said. Such problems were issues of world policing and the extra expenditure and effort that would go into a liberal refugee policy would be better spent on strengthening the United Nations. He deplored the fact that Ireland spends so little on overseas development aid.
A liberal refugee policy was, he said, "akin to throwing cough syrup at cancer victims". His team mate, John Gallagher, said he and Nolan were "looking at the big picture" while the opposition were "looking at the Big Issues". Conflicts over ethnicity, religion, land and power had to be solved at an international level - after all, the problems of South Africa hadn't been remedied by evacuating all black people from the country, he said. Bernadette Quigley of the UCD Literary and Historical Society said the idea of only admitting asylum-seekers whose lives were in imminent danger was impractical and morally indefensible.. Ireland, given its history of emigration for economic reasons, should admit all asylum-seekers who were "living in intolerable situations. Now that we're on top of the economic ladder we've become embarrassingly dismissive of those who are still climbing." As 44 per cent of asylum seekers were professionals, and another 28 per cent were from non-manual or skilled manual backgrounds, they could help this country remedy its skills shortage, Quigley said.
A UN fund should be set up, she concluded, so countries which are especially attractive to asylum-seekers at a particular point of time wouldn't have to shoulder all the financial burden.
Her team-mate, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, said the Geneva Convention's definition of who should be granted refugee status was too narrow, as it only covered persecution carried out by agents of the state. Some 200,000 people had crammed into a stadium in Freetown, Sierra Leone, fleeing persecution by non-state terrorists. No asylum seeker leaves their home country "gets into a cargo hold and eats dog food for two weeks" just to go benefit shopping, she argued. Proposing the motion, Yvonne Campbell of TCD said the Geneva Convention only envisaged asylum-seekers who were under "severe threat of persecution" being granted refugee status. "For all their liberal spiel", the opposition were essentially proposing that asylum-seekers be admitted as a source of "cheap labour". The process was being misused by people who were attempting to circumvent strict immigration laws, to the detriment of genuine refugees, she said.
The first duty of the Government should be to look after its own underclass, for whom the economy was more "a Cheshire cat than a Celtic Tiger".
Her team-mate, Brid McGrath, said refugee status afforded the beneficiary international protection for the rest of his or her life. Those leaving their country because of its present economic situation didn't need such protection. Compassion had to be tempered by common sense, she argued.
Pat English of UCC said admitting more foreign nationals to the State would force us to come to terms with the undercurrent of racism here. Irish people had gone abroad in search of a better lifestyle in the past, an experience which had benefited both themselves and the economies and cultures which hosted them. It was now "payback time". His team-mate, Eoin Hyland, concluded the case for the opposition by acknowledging that the problems which led people to flee their home country were ones which had to be tackled on an international level. However, it took five years for the UN and NATO to build an international consensus in Bosnia. In such situations, it was up to countries like Ireland to face the short-term reality and admit asylum-seekers.
THE FIRST INDIVIDUAL speaker of the night, Denis Lehane of the UCC Law Society, said Ireland was a racist society which couldn't handle racial diversity. An influx of a large number of refugees would result in a new sub-class and could even pose a terrorist threat.
The United States was proof of the fact that legal measures and education alone could not prevent racism.
Eoin Mac Giolla Ri of the King's Inns said there was a sharp contrast between how Ireland treated the former president of Mexico, Salinas - who has made Ireland his home - and how we would treat an ordinary asylum-seeker from the same country. The State should admit both economic migrants and refugees, he argued: "How many miles away from a problem do you have to be to shirk your responsibility for it?" Also opposing, Padraic Lyons of TCD said there were well founded reasons for asylum-seekers to be here and that they weren't taking the country "for a social welfare ride". Irish people should recognise the heartbreak of knowing your country has no more to offer you, he added. Rossa Fanning said that while nobody respectable in public life in Ireland would propose the position advocated in the motion, he was "not going to run and not going to hide" from his duty as a proposition speaker. Political correctness had precluded logical debate on our refugee policy, he added. Fanning said it was not enough to ask whether this country could sustain another asylum-seeker - we also had to consider what effect the asylum-seeker's departure would have on their home country. By enabling asylum-seekers to leave their country of origin, you undermined that country's ability to deal with its problems, whether they be economic or political.
Asylum-seekers should be returned to their countries, he said, with a stern warning to that country's authorities that political and economic sanctions would follow if the person was harmed. Although it would be regrettable if the asylum-seeker were eventually killed, he said, the emotions aroused by political assassination frequently had a beneficial effect on the political structures of a state - the consequences of the deaths of Steve Biko in South Africa and Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador being the best examples. In the end, Fanning took the individual title by dint of his unambiguous advocacy of a motion which he admitted in some humorous asides to have had problems in bringing himself to propose. Gallagher and Quigley were the most evenly balanced and cogent team of the night, and deserved to bring the team honours back to the L&H for the first time in five years.
While there was some sympathy for UCC's Eoin Hyland, who left the debate empty-handed despite a rousing and intelligent speech, the chat at the post-debate social events suggested that the panel of judges had achieved that most rare of debating phenomena - an adjudication that most of the competitors agreed with.
