Refugees and asylum-seekers in Ireland should be allowed to work and "use their talents to build a better Ireland, just as the Irish helped build a better Britain and America", the IMPACT conference in Bunratty was told yesterday.
Delegates voted overwhelmingly for motions calling for a Charter on Asylum Rights in Ireland and demanding that "genuine asylum-seekers" be "treated with compassion".
However, a Clonmel delegate, Ms Aileen Acheson, said that limits must be put on the number of refugees allowed into the State and that some of those already here must "behave better".
Community welfare officer Mr Brendan Baker described the current practice of screening asylumseekers on the basis of skin colour as "inherently racist". The "appearance on our streets of coloured people has provoked a strange reaction", he said. " `Free Nelson Mandela' is fine - so long as he doesn't want to live here."
Many refugees had valuable skills, but the system did not allow them to work. He accepted that many were economic refugees.
Mr Chris Robson of the architecture and heritage branch said it was time to deal compassionately and intelligently with the issue of economic refugees. Some people had forgotten that in the early 1980s, there were 140,000 Irish illegal immigrants in the US.
No one seriously suggested that they had all flown in terror from an authoritarian Fianna Fail regime. In fact, Irish Ministers had lobbied the United States looking for work visas for these people.
"Why should we only welcome people who have been tortured or shot at?" Mr Robson asked. "Let the new immigrants work here and use their talents to build a better Ireland, just as we helped build a better Britain and America."
Ms Acheson agreed that refugees must be treated better. "We must get into negotiations with their governments to legalise the situation," she said. But she felt there must be a limit on the numbers allowed in. We should "remember our own people" who were unemployed and in need of jobs and housing.
Some of the refugees also needed to be reminded "to behave better" while they were here. This was not to say that some Irish "don't behave badly. But I am sick of meeting women with coloured skirts begging in the streets saying they are starving," she said. "There is enough blackguardism in the country without that."
There were several interventions from the floor objecting to Ms Acheson's remarks. She concluded by agreeing that more services were needed to help refugees, including better language facilities in the State agencies helping them.
Ms Patricia Owen said she found Ms Acheson's comments "offensive in the extreme".
The delegates passed a motion calling for the basic rights of asylum-seekers to be enshrined in a charter, which would guarantee them freedom of expression and of movement and stipulate that detention should not be part of the asylum process. The Government's prison building programme also came under attack at the conference. Mr Paddy O'Dea of the probation and welfare branch said his members were opposed to the recent decision to expand the programme beyond the original target of 800 extra places.
The 2,000 new prison places now promised would cost £200 million to build and £92 million a year to operate, he said. Contracts for 1,200 units were already signed, although prison had not proved a deterrent and the recidivism rate was 70 per cent.