The Irish Refugee Council (IRC) has called on the Government to grant long-term residency to people who applied for asylum over two years ago but whose applications have yet to be processed.
At the launch of its policy document Two years in Limbo - Enough is Enoughat the National Museum in Dublin today, the IRC criticised the Government for failing to honour its commitment to process asylum applications within six months.
The document, endorsed by CORI, IBEC and ICTU, outlines the plight of several hundred people who applied for asylum on, or before, the end of 1998 but are still awaiting a final decision.
IRC’s Chief Executive, Mr Pat O’Mahony, said these people, who are eligible to work, have been stuck in limbo for over two years - many of whom are now beginning their fourth or fifth year in the country.
He called on the Government to regularise their status by granting them long-term residency en blocon a basis comparable to the (individual) "Leave to Remain" offered by the Minister for Justice in the past.
"Only then can they leave the trauma of their past behind them, get on with their lives and make the maximum contribution to Irish society," he said.
Ms Inez McCormack, President of ICTU, was equally critical of the Government’s delay in processing the applications.
"To leave human beings, who are strangers in need in such cruel uncertainty is not only an abrogation of their human rights, it is a condemnation of our own humanity."
She added it was even more unacceptable that separated children have been left in what she termed a "black hole".