I was stunned at the news that Pamela Izevbekhai – the Nigerian asylum seeker who highlighted the plight of her daughters facing FGM – had lost her case at the European Court of Human Rights and might be deported after all.
Izevbekhai’s case rested on the claim that her first daughter Elizabeth had died in Nigeria as a result of FGM. Documents signed by a Nigerian doctor were produced to support her case, but the doctor later claimed these documents were forged, and according to the Nigerian government there was no evidence of Elizabeth’s death. The case had been heard in more than 20 appearances in the High Court and a number of appearances in the Supreme Court.
While not wishing to make a judgement on the veracity of the claim, this case raises several important issues regarding the asylum application process in Ireland. Firstly, while Izevbekhai was campaigning, her daughters – whose young lives have been spent in a direct provision hostel in Sligo – have known no other life. For them, Nigeria is a foreign country.
Secondly, there is the issue of the general low rate of acceptance of asylum applications in this country. A new Eurostats report shows that Ireland – with 1.3 per cent – has now overtaken Greece as the EU member state with the lowest acceptance rate (compared with 24 per cent for Britain, 36 per cent for Sweden and 13 per cent for France).
A lawyer with connections to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal justified this low rate by pointing to the “poor quality” of the applications, arguing that asylum seekers overuse the Irish courts at a high cost to the Irish taxpayer.
The third issue is indeed cost. In May the Minister for Justice told the Dáil that 950 court cases were pending against decisions by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, the Refugee Appeals Tribunal and the minister. He did not specify the average cost of an asylum appeal, but said that legal aid for asylum seekers costs taxpayers about €7m per year, excluding costs incurred by the Chief State Solicitor’s office, the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service and the Courts Service.
I have two questions about all this. One: Why have we turned asylum seekers into figures and facts without considering the human side of their stories? Pamela Izevbekhai may have lied, for all I know, but this is what refugees fleeing unjust societies usually have to do. She and her daughters are now part-and-parcel of Irish society and should be allowed to remain.
And two: The previous Government suggested that people living in direct provision hostels for more than five years (because their cases have been continuously delayed) may be allowed to remain. So why does the current Government not adopt this suggestion, allowing these people to work, pay tax and live among us, while also reforming the asylum system for future applicants? No one should have to wait such a long time for a decision in their case.
Dr Ronit Lentin is head of the MPhil in Race, Ethnicity, Conflict at the Department of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin. Her column appears fortnightly in Metro Éireann.
