Local election candidates have been left in limbo over whether they are allowed into direct provision centres to canvass.

Many asylum seekers living in direct provision centres have described the right to work as “liberating”.

The Department of Justice has this evening acknowledged a "regrettable and isolated incident" in which staff at direct provision centre close to the Limerick Clare border refused to give a mother and ill child bread and milk because the centre’s canteen was closed for the night.

The private firm that is shutting down the largest direct provision centre in the capital received payments totalling €27.5m from the State over an 11 year period for operating the centre, new figures show.

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.

The Ombudsman received more than 3,000 complaints about providers of public services last year, including an increase in complaints about local authorities linked to planning and housing and 115 complaints from asylum seekers.

It is all too easy to conflate one of the great social crimes of our age — having the temerity to be judgemental — with one of the great human tragedies of the age— mass immigration — and criticise the vote taken last week by a Clare community.

Locals have rejected plans to accommodate 115 asylum seekers in a Clare town.

A 30% surge in asylum seeker applications here last year has resulted in the State moving to open “as a matter of urgency” a new direct provision centre in Lisdoonvarna in north Clare.

The Ombudsman received 97 formal complaints from residents of direct provision centres last year, with some asylum seekers claiming they were reluctant to complain about issues where they lived for fear of being labelled “troublemakers”.

The Department of Justice has stepped up its plans to provide accommodation and services worth €40m for refugees of the Syrian conflict.

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

The number of asylum seekers in direct provision accommodation decreased by almost 6% last year.

The Office of the Ombudsman has received five complaints from people living in direct provision, in the first two weeks since asylum seekers were allowed to contact the office with concerns.

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.

Women’s portraits have been hung on the walls of the country’s leading academic body for the first time — 230 years after its foundation.

An emergency action plan for higher education should be introduced by Education Minister Richard Bruton like the one he implemented for jobs, a leading academic has claimed.

Pictures and plans of Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel’s residence and offices were found on a computer discovered after a raid on a flat used by the men suspected of carrying out last week’s deadly bombings in Brussels, Belgian media reported.

Saudi Arabia appears to have floated the idea of a global deal to balance oil markets and lift prices from around the lowest levels in six years although fellow producers Iran, Iraq and Russia yesterday rejected its main idea of cutting output.

THE common dormouse, made famous through the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, has been found in Ireland and is being treated as a non-native species. 

The Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) last year spent €60,252 flying destitute foreign nationals home from Ireland.

The Handbook of the Irish Revival contains violent material and covers a period when theatre was never so exciting because history itself was excited, writes Thomas McCarthy.

Health watchdog Hiqa has told the Child and Family Agency it should conduct an audit to ensure there are no asylum-seeker children at risk of harm because of incomplete assessments, due to the moving of families between different direct provision accommodation centres.

Russia wants to question former oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky as a suspect in a murder case that has been reopened because of new evidence, federal investigators announced.

Schools with higher numbers of disadvantaged students should be prioritised if guidance counselling provision is restored, says the Royal Irish Academy.

A US army infantry convoy is driving through eastern Europe seeking to provide reassurance to a region concerned that the conflict between Russian-backed rebels and government forces in Ukraine threatens its security.

A survey of social workers has found that most believe direct provision is having a short and long-term impact on children and is also damaging the capacity of adult asylum seekers to parent to their full potential.

Rockets killed more than 10 civilians and soldiers deep in Ukrainian government-held territory yesterday and rebels pushed on with an assault on an army-held rail junction, setbacks that showed Kiev’s position worsening on the eve of peace talks.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has confirmed that 16 asylum-seeker children aged up to five have died while living in direct provision in the last 13 years.

The Department of Health’s analysis of the impact of forcing cigarette companies to use plain packaging was a box-ticking exercise that breached the Government’s own analysis guidelines, the country’s biggest tobacco company has claimed.

Asylum seekers have suspended a 10-day protest at their direct provision centre after securing a package of improvements which they say includes the installation of a gym, Sky Sports, and better internet access.

Asylum seekers have called on Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald to meet them at a Cork direct provision centre where they have been protesting at conditions for the past week.

Ukraine said its artillery destroyed part of a Russian armoured column that entered its territory on Thursday night and said its forces came under shellfire from Russia yesterday in what appeared to be a major military escalation between the ex-Soviet states.

The number of destitute European nationals flown home from Ireland under an EU scheme increased by 52% last year.

More than two thirds of asylum seekers living in direct provision centres have been there for at least three years, according to a report by the state’s Reception and Integration Agency (RIA).

The cost of meeting judicial reviews taken by asylum seekers and other legal costs totalled €5.8 million last year — and was paid by the State’s Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS).

Asylum seekers deserve the right to cook for themselves, writes Sharon Ní Chonchúir.

Migrant rights groups welcomed news that asylum seekers will be allowed to receive election literature, even though direct provision centres are still no-go zones for candidates.

Migrant rights groups today welcomed news that asylum seekers will be allowed to receive election literature - even though direct provision centres are still no-go zones for candidates.