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(c) additional staff resources to speed up the screening and
appeals procedure: all post 16 June 1988 arrivals must be screened in accordance with UNHCR approved criteria. Those screened out have recourse to an appeals procedure. Partly because of staff shortages, the procedures are now very slow. At the current rate, it would take many years before everyone is screened. If the screening and repatriation policy is to be credible, procedures will have to be speeded up and additional qualified staff will have to be found.
UNHCR may launch an international appeal for funds for this purpose, to which we should be ready to respond positively.
(a) further expenditure in connection with the Refugee Conference: the Conference may agree to new measures to alleviate the problem, which would require substantial additional expenditure. One possibility would be a Regional Holding Centre somewhere in the region to accommodate those screened out as non-refugees, pending their eventual return to Vietnam. Another possibility is the establishment of an Overspill Centre in the region for new arrivals or refugees awaiting resettlement, to alleviate the pressure on Hong Kong. Major financial inducements would, however, be
necessary to persuade any government to agree to the establishment of such a centre on its territory.
12. Some of these costs, should they arise, would properly fall to the ODA, since they would involve emergency assistance of a humanitarian nature or would be channelled
through the UNHCR to help with matters that fall within the
UNHCR's mandate. This would mean a further call on the
ODA's already overstretched refugee funds. So far, we have been able to use aid funds to respond to UNHCR appeals to solve the immediate problem (most recently £6 million) but
/that
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