By Conall Ó Fátharta
The Government has again been called on to commit to solutions that allow people to safely and legally escape persecution - after another group of migrants was found trying to enter Ireland in a cargo ship.
Eight men, believed to be from Albania and aged in their 20s were discovered hiding aboard a bulk cargo ship by crew in Bellview port in Waterford on Wednesday. The vessel had travelled to Ireland from France.
All the men were found fit and well and Garda Immigration Officers are now dealing with the case.
The discovery comes just weeks after the discovery of 16 people in a sealed container on a truck owned by an Irish company on a ferry bound for Rosslare Europort in Wexford.
Chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council Nick Henderson said that "without more proactive responses and solutions" which open up safe and legal routes for people to escape persecution, people will continue to risk their lives in this fashion.
He said:
"No person should find themselves in a situation where they feel that their only choice is to pay smugglers to transport them on dangerous and arduous journeys with no guarantees for their safety.
There is no visa to claim asylum. A person cannot go to an embassy in their country and ask for protection. They have to be in the country to make the asylum application
Mr Henderson pointed to data from the Department of Justice, available up until the end of 2017 but not for subsequent years, which indicated that the vast majority of asylum applications were made at Dublin airport, not at seaports.
"It is likely that this remains the case. While Ireland has taken steps to develop safe and legal pathways to protection, it and other European countries can do more,” he said.
Green Party MEP for Ireland South Grace O’Sullivan yesterday urged people to “spare some compassion" for the plight of the eight men found hiding inside the bulk hold of the ship.
“I was at Waterford Port a few weeks ago, and when the news broke about eight more stowaways being found aboard a container ship at the port, I was thinking about how wrong these awful journeys can go," she said.
"It's not long since the UK saw the deaths of 39 Vietnamese men, women and children in the back of a lorry, and only last month we saw 16 more desperate people come in to Rosslare port. When you see just how many containers come and go at Waterford Port, it's a chilling eye-opener,” she said.
