Independent Senator Michael McDowell has said it “makes a complete nonsense of national sovereignty” for Ireland to be obliged to accommodate asylum seekers simply because they claim to be gay and from Algeria.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s *Today With Claire Byrne* programme earlier this week, the former Justice Minister argued that current international protections are no longer sustainable.
“It makes a complete nonsense of national sovereignty if people can simply say, ‘I’m here, I’m gay, I’m Algerian, and I want to stay in Ireland,’” he said.
“And once I establish that, Ireland is obliged — first of all — to put me in social welfare, secondly after a period to allow me work, and I jump all queues in relation to employment permits and the like. That’s nonsense. And most people in Ireland believe that.”
McDowell said that the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees was designed for “a very small number of cases” involving political persecution, and not for large-scale movements of people.
“This is not what the 1951 Convention is all about,” he said.
“It was brought in in very, very different circumstances where people who faced political persecution in their country were given protection in a very small number of cases.”
He added: “Right across Europe, there is a perception — and it’s a growing perception — not just simply among hard-right politicians in Hungary, but among centrist politicians in Poland, Germany, and Holland, and places like that, that the 1951 Convention on Refugees is no longer practical or sustainable.”
He went on to question the motivations of those travelling to Ireland via other European countries.
“He comes to Ireland because he wants to,” McDowell said.
“He doesn’t go anywhere else in Europe — he comes indirectly through other European states, and he comes here to Ireland to assert that because homosexuality is illegal and a criminal offence in his country, he wants the Irish people to accept him to come and live in Ireland.”
McDowell claimed that most current asylum applications are in fact “economic migrancy dressed up as asylum seeking.”
Responding to McDowell during the broadcast, immigration lawyer and Head of Research at Thomas Coughlan & Co. Solicitors, Cathal Malone, strongly rejected the assertion that existing conventions are outdated.
“Well, first of all, I suppose I would thank the Senator for being upfront and honest about what it is he believes,” Malone said.
“Because ultimately, what we’re talking about here is repealing a significant part of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, repealing the Geneva Convention 1951 on the Status of Refugees, and in fact going a step further…all in an effort to disadvantage, in this example, the gay Algerian man that Senator McDowell believes shouldn’t be coming here.”
Malone argued that Ireland was only now at the European average for asylum applications per capita, following a recent rise in numbers.
“It’s about 2.5 per thousand,” he said.
“We were actually, all of the years up to COVID, basically receiving the lowest number of applications for asylum per head of population of anywhere.”
He further claimed that many of those going through the international protection process do so only because they cannot access Ireland’s legal work permit system.
“If the Minister…would loosen up the employment permit system so that people could apply to come the right way, many of those wouldn’t try and come here the wrong way,” he said.
But McDowell rejected that characterisation.
“It is not refugees who are keeping the health service going — or asylum seekers,” he said.
“That’s a delusion. We do have an employment permit system which enables really good people to come to Ireland who work for us and do valuable work for us in the health system and in various other sectors of the economy.”
He added: “What you are standing up for is the proposition that somebody who’s in Algeria, who claims that they are gay…that they can come to Ireland or any other country in Europe of their choice and say, ‘Put me up. Let me in.’”
The exchange follows recent data published in the Irish Mail on Sunday which found that 85% of asylum claims were refused at first instance in 2023 — up from around 50% in 2017.
Figures also show that a third of appeals to the International Protection Appeals Tribunal are successful. Critics have warned that rushed processing times may be preventing some applicants from accessing legal advice before a decision is made.
Last year 18,500 people sought asylum in Ireland.