Sir, - Trocaire welcomes the statement from the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O Donnell, in support of allowing asylum seekers to work where their applications take more than six months to process (The Irish Times, July 11th).
Unfortunately, the Minister for Justice, Mr John O'Donoghue, has rejected her call. In so doing he fails to recognise that giving asylum seekers the right to work would enable them to contribute to the record surplus in our exchequer finances. At the same time, the Minister has been quick to point out that providing asylum seekers with welfare payments is a drain on these same finances.
While Mr O'Donoghue holds this position, the moral, economic and social arguments for allowing asylum seekers to work have been publicly stated by a growing body of opinion, including political representatives, the former Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, church leaders, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed.
The Minister's grasp of why people seek asylum continues to be seriously flawed when he states that "giving a right to work would simply create another pull factor which would put further pressure on the asylum processing system and continue to delay recognition for genuine refugees in need of protection".
It defies logic to suggest that asylum seekers lightly choose to flee their home countries to live on social welfare in Ireland where many have experienced hostility and prejudice, unless there are compelling reasons for them to do so.
Asylum seekers who have suffered human rights abuses in their home countries should not meet with the denial of other human rights in their host country. One of these is "the right to work", enshrined in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition, the right to work is the first social right set out in the European Convention on Social Rights which was recently included in the preamble to the Amsterdam Treaty for which the Government campaigned so strongly.
Minister O'Donoghue should urgently reconsider his position as reported in The Irish Times (July 14th) and align Ireland with those EU member states which allow asylum seekers to work so as to enable them to contribute their skills to our society. - Yours, etc., Maura Leen, Policy analyst, Trocaire,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.