You try applying for asylum with no internet and no passport

Ireland has received just one family and blamed ‘low take up’ on refugees who had not wished to complete the first step of applying for asylum, writes Victoria White.

THIS is not a mistake. Keeping 50,000 people locked in miserable refugee camps in Greece is a decision. It is no accident that grannies and young children will sleep tonight in Athens Harbour in tents stuck under haulage trucks.

It is a warning which says, “Stay where you are, all you Syrians and Afghans and Iranians and Eritreans and Nigerians and Somalians and Gambians. You don’t want to end up sleeping in a tent, now do you?” 1,000 people have died in the past week on the central Mediterranean route between Libya and Italy. Action to stamp out rogue smugglers on this route has to come from Libya.