A campaign to allow asylumseekers to work in Ireland while their applications are being processed has been endorsed by more than 100 organisations, including the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU).
The Government was accused of forcing asylum-seekers into a dependency culture, which was "sowing the seeds of virulent racism in our cities", at a press conference in Dublin yesterday organised by the Asylum Rights Alliance, which is overseeing the campaign.
With Ireland out of step with many of its EU partners, who allow asylum-seekers to work pending a decision on their status, the alliance wants asylum-seekers to be allowed to work or study after six months while awaiting determination of their position. Britain has announced that it is to ease such work restrictions.
The alliance is supported by a large number of refugee, human rights and development organisations, including Trocaire, who participated in a rally in Dublin last night.
In a statement of support for the alliance, a former Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, described the Government's policy of no work or study for asylum-seekers as "ill-conceived" and "incomprehensible".
Dr FitzGerald said: "The excuse that permitting asylum-seekers might exacerbate hostility to them from the unemployed was reminiscent of the 1930s excuse of excluding Jewish refugees because it might encourage anti-Semitism."
Mr Mike Allen, of the INOU, criticising the current policy, commented: "Endless delays in processing claims with the denial of work is forcing those seeking the right to live here to rely on social welfare or engage in black economy work. This bureaucratically-enforced dependency is sowing the seeds of a virulent racism in our cities."
Ms Patricia O'Donovan, a spokeswoman for the ICTU, said that the congress would be taking up with the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, the case for "allowing asylum-seekers to work after a certain period of time while waiting for their applications to be processed".
Trocaire's chairman, Bishop John Kirby, cited a study by Father Michael Begley, which had shown that Ireland had "an untapped reservoir of well-educated, skilled and talented people who not only want to work but are willing to study to upgrade their skills in order to join the Irish workforce".
Democratic Left's spokesperson on justice, Ms Liz McManus, said that the refusal to allow asylumseekers to seek or accept work was a form of double discrimination which forced asylum-seekers to claim social welfare and "left them open to the perception that they were refusing to work and wanted to live off the State".
The Department of Justice said yesterday that it had no plans to change the current policy and confirmed that part of the Refugee Act yet to be implemented specifically precluded asylum-seekers from working.
Meanwhile, Ms Aine Ni Chonaill, of Immigration Control Platform, said that allowing asylum-seekers to work would "make Ireland even more attractive to a further influx of asylum-seekers".
