Asylum seekers face bar on holding driving licences

Already banned from working or studying here, asylum-seekers are now set to be banished from the roads. New regulations introduced by the Department of the Environment will prevent most asylum-seekers from holding provisional driving licences.

The Department has also instructed local authorities to revoke licences which have already been granted to asylum-seekers, according to groups working with asylum-seekers in the south-east. This claim has been denied by one of the authorities most affected, Wexford County Council.

Henceforth, the standard identity card issued to asylum-seekers by the Department of Justice will no longer be accepted as proof of identity in licence applications. The change was introduced following the publicity surrounding the arrival of large numbers of asylum-seekers in Ireland over the summer.

An asylum-seeker (or other non-national) will now have to submit a birth certificate or passport or the "green card" issued when a person is granted domiciliary rights here.

However, the majority of asylum-seekers arrive in Ireland without birth certificates or passports, and have no means of accessing such documents in their home countries once they have come here. Democratic Left TD Ms Liz McManus said the Department was now systematically refusing applications for provisional licences from asylum-seekers. "These people are not allowed to work in our country, they are not allowed to study - and now they're being prevented from travelling."

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said applicants for driving licences had to prove they were "normally resident" in the State. Licences were not given out "willy-nilly". He denied that licences held by asylum-seekers were being revoked.

However, an Irish Refugee Council spokesman in Wexford said asylum-seekers there had been told their licences would be revoked and their money refunded. A public service official confirmed this version of events, adding that the same instruction had gone out in Waterford.