According to Senator Michael McDowell, Roderic O’Gorman has decided that it would not be in the “public interest” to publish the minutes of sixteen government meetings which examined the consequences of amending the constitution in the upcoming referendums in relation to tax laws, social welfare laws, pension laws, allocation of family assets, alimony and allowance including the laws in relation to family reunification for asylum seekers. The records also include correspondence with an NGO named “Treoir”.

It looks like they're deliberately concealing the ramifications of voting Yes in the two referendums so as not to motivate the public into voting No. Neale Richmond has already let it slip that changing the definition of family to "any durable relationship" will increase the scope of the family reunification scheme for refugees and rejected asylum seekers who are granted subsidiary protection regardless.

I wonder what else are they're hiding.

🔗 x.com

Just want to quickly correct some disinformation in this report in the Examiner.

Minister Roderic O'Gorman has been making the claim that 40% of asylum seekers are able to prove that they were persecuted in the country they fled from and he's now calling the remaining 60% of applicants "economic migrants". He further claims that the government intends to crack down on this 60% cohort.

Firstly, processing asylum applications is responsibility of the Dept of Justice so it's curious why Minister Helen McEntee didn't make this announcement. I have a couple of theories but I won't go into them as the point of this post is to examine his figures and statements.

In the 15 years between 2002 and and 2016 the percentage of asylum seekers whose claims were accepted as valid and granted refugee status stood at a mere 7%.

But in 2016, the authority tasked with processing asylum applications was changed from ORAC to IPAS.

At this point a category of 'subsidiary protection' was introduced whereby if an asylum seeker's claim was rejected, IPAS could still grant them residency on the theoretical possibility that they might face some hardship if deported. People granted this option are, like those granted refugee status, allowed to apply for family reunification.

The Dept of Justice was under no obligation to introduce this category which falls beyond the scope of the UN's Convention on refugees.

In 2017, for example, all asylum applications from Nigerians were rejected. However, 57% were then granted subsidiary protection. Similarly, all applications from Congolese people were rejected but 100% of them were subsequently granted subsidiary protection.

And if an asylum seeker fails to qualify for subsidiary protection, there's a third option where they can still be granted Leave To Remain at the Dept of Justice's discretion on "compassionate" grounds.

You might remember the case of Ellie Kisyombe who spent ten years in direct provision appealing her asylum application's rejection while refusing to go home to Malawi, until she was granted Leave To Remain and returned there twice on holiday.

So Minister Roderic O'Gorman is spreading disinformation when he said this:

"We know about 40% of people who go through the international protection system are able to prove that they are being persecuted and they meet the criteria and about 60% of people don't meet those particular criteria."

A large portion of that 40% did not in fact have to prove they had been actively persecuted.

O'Gorman allegedly told RTÉ's Claire Byrne Show that international protection had to be for people fleeing war, conflict and persecution.

So why has the government been granting "status" (as the Irish Times like to call it) to asylum seekers who can prove none of these things for the last seven years?

🔗 irishexaminer.com

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🚨 Community Alert for Drumcondra

A girls' school in Drumcondra has circulated an email warning parents that there was an attempted child abduction of two children over the weekend.

One incident occurred in Grace Park Wood and the other in the Maryfield College area. The description of the car involved is a white Audi.

Parents are asked to be vigilant and gardaí have been informed.

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Michael Reade allowed to spread hate and fear unchallenged for four minutes on LMFM yesterday about the protesters heading to Marsh Rd in Drogheda today to protest the government's decision to accommodate 500 asylum seekers in the town's largest hotel.

Reade does concede however that some of the hotel's new residents may "rape our daughters".

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The protest outside Roscrea Garda station this evening after a single mother of two children said a man tried to break into her house in the Limerick Street area last night.

In a post on facebook, the mother said that she had just returned from McDonalds to put the children to bed for school in the morning when the man tried to push the door to her home in while exposing himself to her and her children and exclaiming "sexy lady, do you want some of this?"

Fortunately, her neighbours heard her screaming and came to her assistance, and her family arrived shortly afterwards. She said her six year old daughter is now traumatised.

She recorded footage of the incident but says the gardaí advised her not to post it on social media "as it can affect the case".

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An audience member had to be bailed out by Katie Hannon after forgetting his lines during the RTÉ debate about the upcoming referenda last night.

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You can see why he'd appeal to RTÉ.

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Minister Helen McEntee has refused to release figures on the duration of time rejected asylum applicants are waiting before she tells them they can stay in Ireland despite failing their asylum bid "on humanitarian grounds," according to Independent TD Michael McNamara.

McNamara told the Tonight Show that he believes the chances of rejected asylum applicants being allowed to stay in Ireland increase the longer they are allowed to remain in the asylum system after being rejected.

"This is a large part of the problem. It is possibly one of the factors that is attractive about Ireland is the delay in processing asylum applications."

In 2017, an ESRI study found that approximately 80% of deportation orders against rejected asylum applicants were believed to go unimplemented despite 90% of them failing their applications at the time.

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