Emmet's Story in Dublin

Emmet, from Cavan is a passionate campaigner working on the Right to Refuge campaign with Oxfam. His passion for campaigning stems from a personal story he has around a friend of his who was a refugee. He shares this story below

"My driving passion to volunteer is because of what happened to my Palestinian friend who I met in college. I mention it to people all the time. He was seeking asylum here in Ireland, and he was seeking asylum for two and a half years and was denied… and was deported… and at that point I was so unbelievably angry, because as an Irish person, WE have travelled to every single corner of this planet over the last seven hundred years and every single place we went we were accepted and every single place we still go now are proud to say “I have Irish blood”. And in Ireland, I believe we have a genetic memory of our past and we are here and we are here NOT taking in as many refugees as we can. Then, when we do take refugees we put them into a completely inadequate situation which is direct provision. Then when it comes to people seeking asylum, there’s a massive long list of people and they are not allowed to work and they’re not allowed to do anything while they are seeking asylum and then they can still be denied and then deported… and.. I’m sorry but WE have a responsibility to the rest of the world as Irish people.. it’s such a STRONG belief of mine. It’s our responsibility to take as many refugees as we can… what’s the American phrase.. “Bring me your poor, your sick, your huddled masses”… THAT is what Ireland should be, because WE did it. We did it for years and years.. centuries, CENTURIES of Irish people travelling abroad and we owe it to the world to offer that back.. and to take people back, give them a home and be friendly to them, and welcome to them into our society, and welcome them into our culture as well. Anytime, I see that not happening, I get very, very passionate and I get very, very angry. Which is why, when I heard about the Right to Refuge campaign I said yes. We have to do more, and that’s what this campaign is about and this is what volunteering is about.

You know.. my friend had a three-story house in the centre of Gaza and his entire family lived there – EVERY single member of his whole family lived in this house because it was all they could afford. He went to the shops once day and he came back, and a missile had struck his house and his entire family except he and his brother had been killed. His ENTIRE world was wiped out in one moment just because he went to the shop and bought a pack of tobacco. It could have been him, you know? He and his brother had been very lucky, and the two of them said, you know we have to get the hell out of here because if we stay here, then we are going to die. So they crawled out through a tunnel right underneath the West Bank and ended up in Israel, then eventually they smuggled themselves into a boat that went to Spain. They lived in Spain for about a year before being caught and arrested and then they were imprisoned in Spain for a year and a half until eventually they were able to get transport into Ireland in which the asylum process began. They chose Ireland because a lot of Palestinians feel they have a lot in common with Irish people, you know the oppression, you know there are a lot of ties there, we obviously feel a lot towards them as well, so for him he thought “Oh Ireland, this is a the perfect place, these people will be so welcoming towards me”. In fairness, we were very welcoming towards him. When he found out he didn’t get the asylum the first time, he was gutted, he had nothing, he no idea what he was going to do. He was there in a country, now illegally and refused asylum and he knew he couldn’t go home because he’d end up killed. So like I said, he broke a few laws, and got himself into a safe environment, but the thing is, refugees shouldn’t HAVE to break laws, it should NEVER reach that point. The situation as it is in the world right now, should never have gotten this bad, for SO many different reasons. It’s only going to get worse unless someone like Ban Ki Moon, sits down and decides “no, we have to do something about this, this has gone too far”

Well you know, my friend thankfully, got really lucky in the end, it was a happy ending. After leaving Palestine again, he smuggled himself onto a boat bound for Hungary, and ended up in Hungary where he met a wonderful woman, and they fell in love and they got married, so now he has EU citizenship! So it does have a happy ending. But he had to put his life in danger again after returning to Palestine and that's not how it should be"