General

By Sue Conlan. Emily O’Reilly, European Ombudsman, recently described Direct Provision as the “human-rights elephant in the room”. The Working Group on the Protection Process [for asylum seekers], that recently submitted its final report, has looked at the elephant but, perhaps not emboldened enough given its terms of reference, it decided to look away again. A fundamental human rights issue therefore still calls for political attention. For the Irish Refugee Council and others, the ‘End Direct Provision’ campaign is needed now more than ever. The origins of the Working Group lie in the ‘Statement of Government Priorities 2014 – 2016’. This committed to two related steps: bring in a single application procedure for asylum seekers through legislation; and establish an independent Working Group “to report to Government on improvements to the protection process, including Direct Provision and supports for asylum seekers”. The General Scheme of the Bill was published in March 2015. It proposes a single procedure for international-protection applications to replace the existing multi-layered system. This is supposed to lead to “more timely and efficient protection decisions”. The Department of Justice and Equality organised a Roundtable discussion for NGOs with Ministers Fitzgerald and Ó Ríordáin, before establishing the Working Group. The themes were: Direct Provision; Supports for Protection Applicants including for education, training, healthcare, social welfare entitlements and access to employment; and Issues relating to the process of determining international protection. At the first meeting of the Working Group, the Chair, Dr Bryan MacMahon, proposed that its work would be organised around similar themes: Living conditions; Supports and services; and the protection application process. The Working Group therefore proceeded on lines already drawn up by the Department of Justice and Equality. With the benefit of hindsight, it is safe to say that government did not want the Working Group to consider and provide input into the International Protection Bill. This is despite this legislation being central to the strategy underpinning the report of the Working Group. Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Justice and Equality, indicated in her response to the Working Group report that “successful implementation of key recommendations is dependent on the early enactment of the International Protection Bill” . The Working Group ended up proposing changes to the asylum application process only because of the tenacity of individual members of the Group. You would think from reading some of the subsequent comments of the organisations represented on the Working Group that the International Protection Bill was the fruit of their work. Not so: it would have been brought forward anyway, even if the Working Group had never existed. The International Protection Bill is due to be published in September. If amendments to the General Scheme are made, based on the substantive recommendations from the Working Group, it will be a good indication that the Minister intends to have regard to the view of the Working Group she set up. But that is not certain. The main recommendation in the report for those currently in the system affects asylum seekers only once they have been there over five years, unless the application is processed resulting in either deportation or asylum. In effect, the Working Group’s proposals are founded on the principle that no person should be in the system for five years or more. That is a remarkably restricted agenda and cannot have been proposed with any regard to submissions and comments made by asylum seekers. They would not sign up to such a limiting starting-point. Even worse, the proposals for those in the system more than five years will only come to fruition if the Minister accepts the recommendations made by the Working Group about resources. Those involved will then face the uncertainty of moving on from Direct Provision with little or no support to do so. Those who have ‘served’ less than five years will continue to be left waiting in a largely unchanged Direct Provision system. A number of NGOs, and the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, used language to welcome the report that, it can only be assumed, had been agreed in advance. The language of decisions being reached by or through “consensus” dominated media statements on the day of the report’s release – from organisations such as Nasc, Jesuit Refugee Service, UNHCR and Spirasi. They referred to the fact that this consensus included government departments. However, now government departments have been left on their own to argue about what they can or cannot implement in a context of competing demands, particularly on their budgets. Apart from the Ministers and the Chair, it was the NGOs and UNHCR, with a few asylum seekers, that fronted the report launch, even though they are no longer able to influence its progress and implementation. • Sue Conlan is CEO of the Irish Refugee Council. She resigned from the government’s working group on refugees in March

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Asked if the limitations on chemical residues in farmed salmon set by our government and its agencies are adequate to protect health, Dr David Carpenter, Director, Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany in the US, wrote in a personal communication to the Boycott Farmed Salmon Campaign that, “In my judgment many of them are not”. Malachite is probably the most toxic of the ten chemicals. For more than ten years it has been know to cause carcinogenesis, mutagenesis, chromosomal fractures, teratogenecity and respiratory toxicity in some mammals including organ damage and mutagenic, carcinogenic and developmental abnormalities. All ten chemicals are recorded at levels below the Minimum Residue Level set by the Marine Institute and so are listed in the annual ‘Chemical Residues in Irish Farmed Finfish’ report as “compliant”. Introduction Last year the scalps of super-chef Darina Allen and super-foodie Sally McKenna were quietly obtained for the ‘Boycott Farmed Salmon’ Christmas campaign. The campaign quoted Slow Food International’s opposition to farmed salmon, specifically its ‘Not On My Plate’ listing of farmed salmon. Ballymaloe Cookery School’s Allen was President of Slow Food in Ireland and McKenna was involved in setting up a watered-down Slow Food ‘Snail’ marketing logo. After the campaign implied hypocrisy, Allen, a friend of Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney, somehow felt she should “step back’ from her role as President of Slow Food Ireland. McKenna’s Snail has vanished without a trail. However, both of the Irish food celebs continue to promote Irish ‘organic’ smoked salmon and its artisan producers, even if it suggests a double standard. Their lack of support for the boycott is not unexpected. Malachite is probably the most toxic of the ten chemicals. For more than ten years it has been known to cause carcinogenesis, mutagenesis, chromosomal fractures, teratogenecity and respiratory toxicity in some mammals including organ damage On the other end of the political rainbow, the campaign found an ally in the surprising form of Eamon DeValera’s grandson, Eamon O’Cuív, TD, the long-standing FF Galway Deputy – popular supporter of all things rural. O’Cuív told the Oireachtas Agriculture Food and Fisheries Committee hearings in early December that he “will not touch farmed salmon because it is a totally unnatural product”, referring specifically to the use of chemicals. A story filed by Connacht Tribune reporter, Dara Bradley, accurately described the campaign’s highlighting of O’Cuív’s comments. But a banner-headlined feature on the front page: ‘TD wants farmed salmon boycott’. Toxicity-friendly phones in the west rang off their hooks before the ink was dry and an apology to the TD followed the next week. The canny O’Cuív felt he had been used by everyone. This time he was right. The row was triggered by the publication by Boycott Farmed Salmon of a pre-slaughter chemical-residue test of typical ‘organic’ farmed salmon which listed ten chemicals. The ten chemicals include pesticides, food preservatives, dyes, and antibiotics. All of them are recorded at levels below the Minimum Residue Level allowable set by the Marine Institute and so are listed in the Annual ‘Chemical Residues in Irish Farmed Finfish’ Report as “compliant”. Both the company involved, Marine Harvest, a Norwegian multinational that controls 80% of Irish farmed-salmon production and the IFA have issued denials. The comments tell an extraordinary tale and I include them serially after the relevant chemical summary. This document is the Marine Institute’s Inspector’s record of 20 June 2012 of chemical residues testing undertaken by Marine Harvest on 3 September 2011 on a fully grown salmon about to be marketed. The product is certified organic under a 2009 EU Regulation supervised by the Minister for Agriculture, the competent authority for the sector, through the ‘The Standards for Organic Food and Farming in Ireland’. The document was provided by the Marine Institute to the Information Commissioner after a 2012 failure by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to provide any records relating to chemical use on fish farms led to an appeal. The Marine Institute initially informed the Information Commissioner that they “held no relevant documents”, a statement which the Information Commissioner wrote “does not make any sense considering their legal obligations”. In July 2014, the Department notified the Information Commissioner that it had “identified a number of records relevant which had been overlooked earlier”. The Information Commissioner’s ruling states: “No explanation has been offered by the Department as to why these reports were not identified as relevant in response to the original or internal review requests, or indeed when my Office queried the issue in 2014”, concluding “the Department’s handling of the request falling short of what might reasonably be expected”. Three pre-slaughter Residue Testing Inspection Reports were included in the ten Inspection Reports released. Marine Harvest and the IFA have denied that some of the chemicals listed are present (even though some of them are on the company’s list as approved for use on organic salmon). The IFA accused the Boycott Farmed Salmon campaign of an attempt “to ruin hundreds of jobs on Irish farms, processing plants, smokeries and shops in Ireland in the run up to Christmas each year”. When asked about the results, The Department of Agriculture consulted the Marine Institute, its scientific advisor, which informed it that as the test results were undertaken for a private company, it would not be appropriate for it to comment – in spite of the fact that the record was created as part of the Marine Institute’s statutory regulatory role, by its own Inspector. The Minister for Health, who controls the Food and Safety Authority, referred the matter back to the Minister for Agriculture. THE 10 CHEMICALS   1: Emamectin benzoate Top of the list because of the Irish connection must come the pesticide Emamectin benzoate, orally administered in fish food under veterinary prescription. It is sold under the trade name ‘Slice’ to paralyse the nervous system of the ectoparasite sea lice, a relative of the common head lice. Long-standing concerns over this chemical have led to the banning from the food