February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — A £70 million shakeup of immigration and asylum-seeker policy, which includes a controversial plan to keep refugees on floating hotels, is being undertaken by the Irish government.
The plan is an effort to come to grips with the housing crisis caused by an influx of asylum seekers, estimated at 50 per day, and a shortage of workers in the booming economy.
As Justice Minister John O’Donoghue unveiled his wide-ranging package on asylum seekers, Tanaiste Mary Harney announced the country’s first formal work visa program.
The so-called "labor market immigration policy" is expected to result in visas for at least 6,000 in the first year. The plan will initially allow in staff involved in the IT sector, nursing and construction.
People from non-European Economic Area countries can seek job permits through embassies and consulates throughout the world.
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At the same time, O’Donoghue is setting up an agency to deal with the reception and integration of refugees and asylum seekers.
Legislation may be introduced to tighten up measures against deportation dodgers. There are currently about 12,000 asylum seekers in the country and, of 300 deportation orders issued since last year’s Immigration Act, only 19 have been implemented.
"The Garda authorities have advised that, as the law stands, it is extremely difficult for gardai to arrange for the deportation of those who decide to evade the process," O’Donoghue said.
At over 1,000 a month, asylum applications are the second highest in the EU as a percentage of population, according to the department.
Arrangements are being made to fingerprint those arriving in an effort to crack down on fraud and a new refugee documentation and research center will be set up.
"Flotels"
Coping with the severe accommodation crisis and the projected need for 8,000 extra places this year, is the most expensive element of the new package.
Already hotels have been purchased in Dublin and Rosslare Harbour and another hotel outside Dublin is also under negotiation.
Prefabricated housing will be built for 4,000, mobile homes will be purchased to accommodate 1,000, and flotels for another 1,000 will be leased and are expected to be moored in Waterford, Dublin and Cork.
All the accommodation will be provided on a full-board basis supplemented by welfare payments of £15 a week for adults and half that for children.
Already a number of communities have made clear they don’t want asylum seeker settlements in their areas.
Another disadvantaged community, a group of itinerants living on a halting site beside a field being developed in Athlone for mobile homes for asylum seekers, protested they have been seeking better accommodation for more than 10 years and had never benefited from emergency housing measures.
O’Donoghue said he was taken aback by the reaction to the use of "flotels" and claims that they will, in effect, be prison ships for the refugees.
He said they would be used as temporary accommodation and there was no question of people being detained. Officials have studied the use of flotels in Norway and the Netherlands.
"My difficulty is that I am going to run out of conventional accommodation pretty soon and, when I do, I cannot have people sleeping on the streets, in doorways or in public parks," O’Donoghue said.