The Gillard Government made a commitment in 2010 to release all children from immigration detention by June 2011, but still 1000 children languish in the harsh environment of immigration camps around Australia. The Refugee Action Collective organised a protest on July 9, 2011 outside the Melbourne Immigration Transit accommodation which is used for the detention of unaccompanied minors. Rachel Beard
A Co. Laois-based parish priest has hit out against an attitude towards refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland which he has branded as “racist”.
Fr Paddy Byrne of Portlaoise told The Irish Catholic he believes “that there’s an underbelly in Irish society that’s quite cynical to refugees and a great sense of xenophobia where ‘let’s sort our own mess out before we start helping others who find themselves in distress’,” is the attitude.
He called the way Irish society deals with refugees a “scandal” and a “shameful blotch on our people”.
Fr Byrne was speaking after it emerged that more asylum seekers have been deported from Ireland in the first half of this year than the total number deported last year.
“I think how we respond to refugees is at best apathetic as a culture,” Fr Byrne said. “But I fear that there is a strong racist element within Irish society. I think that the Government knows that refugees will not win them votes in any election and therefore it’s not to the forefront of their agenda.”
Harsh conditions
In his parish, Fr Byrne has worked directly with refugees living in harsh conditions, but he feels that “the vast majority of citizens don’t really want to face this issue and silently are quite happy to keep people locked away in limbo in these centres”.
Fr Bobby Gilmore, president of the Migrants’ Rights Centre of Ireland, called the refugee crisis a “European responsibility” while also noting “the seeming inability of the European institutions to act” on the issue.
Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Limerick Eugene Quinn said the number of new applications for asylum has fallen this year, but he is still concerned about the treatment of migrants seeking refugee status.
“The human right is a right to seek asylum,” Mr Quinn said. “You don’t have a right to asylum. The process needs to be fair and transparent.”