Seanad debates

Thursday, 3 July 2003

Immigration Bill 2002 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil] : Report and Final Stages.

 

Amendment No. 17 inserts three new and important sections into the Refugee Act. The first of these, new section 11A, sets out the circumstances where, by contrast to the more normal shared burden of establishing whether an applicant is a refugee or not, that burden is to rest on the applicant alone. In particular, where an applicant comes from a country like, say, Poland which is generally regarded as safe and not a generator of refugees, this section will give rise to a presumption, rebuttable by the applicant, that he or she is not a refugee. It does not say that in such circumstances that person is never a refugee, but it puts the onus on that person to show it. I will come shortly to the process for designating countries as safe countries of origin.

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