Ireland should grasp the unique opportunity that exists to avoid the kind of racism found throughout the rest of Europe, according to the new Irish representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Ms Hope Hanlan told the annual general meeting of the Irish Refugee Council that Ireland had not been "corrupted". "You have the opportunity to do the right thing before racism rears its ugly head."
Ms Hanlan, a Jamaican with more than 20 years' experience working for UNHCR, said she was alert to racism "by virtue of my pigmentation". Ireland had been an "oasis" in Europe in its treatment of refugees, but it now stood "at a crossroads".
With the appointment of the former president, Mrs Mary Robinson, as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ireland should not let her down when there was a chance for a great "harmony of approach" to human rights at home and abroad.
Up to now, UNHCR has helped the Department of Justice to process applications for asylum. The Department now plans to appoint more than 70 retired gardai and civil servants to do this work. Ms Hanlan, who took over the London-based posting a month ago, said she was too new in the job to comment on the Government's treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers.
She said UNHCR "fully supports" the Refugee Act, which has been only partially implemented. "This means giving people access to all their rights, even when not spelled out in legislation, such as legal aid."
Under the controls introduced in June, an immigrant had no right to a lawyer, a translator or any outside help. At the meeting in Dublin, the council repeated its call on the Government to fully implement the Refugee Act, and to develop support and integration services for refugees without delay.
According to Ms Deirdre Clancy, legal officer with the council, the situation for refugees had become a lot less hopeful over the past year. Public opinion had begun to affect the legal protection afforded to refugees.
Mr John O'Neill, director of the Refugee Agency, which handles programme refugees such as the Bosnian community, regretted the lack of a strong voice in the Government opposing racism and promoting a positive image of refugees and multi-culturalism.
The co-ordinator of the Irish activities under the 1997 European Year Against Racism, Mr Philip Watt, singled out three types of labelling in the media for particular criticism: the assertion that there was a "flood" or "tide" of refugees coming to Ireland; associating refugees with begging, petty theft and crime; and the tendency to claim that most asylum-seekers were bogus, spongers or economic migrants.
