Safe And Sound 'Boat People' Arrive

THE FIRST group of 200 Vietnamese refugees arrived in Ireland on August 9th, 1979, many of whom were “boat people” fleeing the new communist government in Vietnam.

However, Ireland had refused to accept refugees from Indochina (Vietnam) some three years earlier despite appeals from the UN, according to files from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Following the fall of Saigon in 1975, Ireland received applications to take seven Cambodian refugees and seven Vietnamese refugees.

“The present economic situation in Ireland would make the satisfactory settlement of these refugees most difficult, minister for foreign affairs Garret FitzGerald wrote in a letter to the deputy high commissioner for refugees at the UN (UNHCR) in October 1976, a year after the applications were received.

Mr FitzGerald also noted that Ireland had accepted more than 100 Chilean refugees for resettlement – fleeing the aftermath of the Pinochet coup – but “the full integration of these refugees into Irish life has proved difficult, a considerable number being still unemployed”.

Only one person had expressed a specific desire to resettle in Ireland and none had any connection with Ireland, he noted.

Neither was there a “domestic outcry” to accept the Indochinese with the only interest in adopting Vietnamese orphans and it would be difficult to find a group to look after them, a draft letter by the department noted.

However, three years later, the UNHCR again appealed to the department to resettle refugees.

The plight of the “boat people” had been highlighted in the media and the refusal of permission to land gave greater urgency to the plight, a civil servant in the Department of Foreign Affairs wrote in a letter to the Department of Labour in January 1979.

“In view of the desperate situation of many Indochinese refugees”, and Ireland’s international support for humanitarian causes, it was recommended that the refugees should be admitted.