The Government is to back down on its controversial media restrictions on identifying asylum-seekers, writes Nuala Haughey.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said yesterday that he would amend a law brought in last November, one section of which prevented the identification of asylum-seekers without his consent.
The amendment, which is likely to be introduced later this year, will mean that only the informed consent of the asylum-seekers themselves will be needed before they are identified.
The change was welcomed last night by refugee lobby groups and the National Union of Journalists. They had criticised the regulations for restricting the freedom of expression of asylum-seekers and censoring the media.
The Department of Justice had defended the measure on the grounds that it was designed to protect the privacy of the applicant and their relatives, and uphold the integrity of the asylum process.
The restriction was contained in section 19 of the Refugee Act 1996, introduced last November. It required the consent of the Minister for Justice before an asylum-seeker was identified, and included a £1,500 fine or 12 months in prison, or both, for breaching it.
A spokesman for Mr O'Donoghue said the intention had never been to stymie debate. "It was to protect the privacy of the asylum-seeker, the confidentiality of the asylum determination procedure and the relatives of an asylum-seeker who could be endangered if they were still in their country of origin," he said.
Following a review of the matter, the Minister had decided that such protections could be maintained without ministerial consent being needed, he added. The spokesman pointed out that the legislation was originally presented by Mr O'Donoghue's predecessor as Minister for Justice, Mrs Nora Owen of Fine Gael.
The Irish Refugee Council's chief executive, Mr Peter O'Mahony, last night welcomed the removal of "an unnecessary and unwelcome constraint on the free speech of an already vulnerable group". The director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Mr Donncha O'Connell, also welcomed the move.