Plans for a direct provision centre in Co. Leitrim remain "paused", after a meeting with the Immigration Minister David Stanton today.

According to new figures provided by the Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, the spend on emergency accommodation from January to the end of September totals €18m - or an average of €462,046 per week.

Asylum seekers from as diverse countries as the Ukraine and Burundi plan to go on a tour of direct provision centres all around the country next year in a bid to spread their message of hope.

More than 600 children under the age of four are living in Ireland's asylum seeker system.

Nadege Kibamba, from the Democratic Republic of Congo but with an address at the North Circular Road, Dublin 7 admitted the benefit fraud.

Up 10% of asylum seekers have been granted work permits under a new Government system.

A Swedish student activist has prevented the deportation of an Afghan asylum-seeker by buying a ticket for the flight scheduled to remove him and refusing to sit down, preventing the plane from taking off.

The numbers who have been granted asylum here but remain in State-funded direct provision centres has soared by almost 50% to 591 in the past 16 months.

A rejected asylum seeker from Iran suffered serious injuries when he set fire to himself at a town office in Germany, authorities said.

A young Afghan man with “significant” mental health difficulties may apply to prevent his transfer from here to the UK on grounds of the mental health consequences of that, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

A man who claimed he was forced to flee his native Ivory Coast after an outbreak of extensive civil conflict there has won his appeal over being refused asylum here.

An investigation is underway after a young boy fell from a second-floor window at an asylum seeker centre near Cork City.

Policeman Darran Conlon has a mission in Ballyhaunis, a small town in County Mayo.

An asylum seeker who took her own life after 15 months in the State’s direct provision system was being treated for psychiatric illness, an inquest heard yesterday.

The proprietor of a Kerry hotel which is set to close has cited speculation that the venue was to house asylum seekers as one of the reasons it has gone out of business.

An asylum seeker, who was at the centre of controversy surrounding access to third-level education, has described how being in university is a “dream come true”.