Asylum seekers with cars denied Christmas bonus

ASYLUM seekers in the north-east who own a registered car and do not have children did not receive a Christmas bonus payment from community welfare officers, it has emerged.

A senior community welfare officer confirmed that a decision taken regionally meant that the discretionary payment was not paid to car-owning asylum seekers living in accommodation centres in counties Sligo, Donegal and Leitrim.

John Kennedy, superintendent community welfare officer in Sligo, stressed that the payment was made to car-owning asylum seekers with children, but not to others who own cars.

Of the 240 residents at the Globe House centre in Chapel Hill in Sligo, “it affected less than a dozen people,” he said. Fewer people again would have been affected at the centres in Leitrim and Donegal.

The payment, referred to by some as a Christmas bonus, is an exceptional needs payment under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme and is understood to have been €197 paid to most of those at the accommodation centres, with payments of €100 made for children.

While any welfare payment is provided by the Department of Social and Family Affairs, it is facilitated by community welfare officers employed by the HSE.

Mr Kennedy said of the decision: “The criteria is that we deem them to have additional income if they have the ability to own, maintain and operate a motor vehicle.”

He declined to make further comment as to why car-owners with no children did not receive the payment for the first time last Christmas. It is understood a similar scheme was mooted in at least one other region prior to Christmas.

Robin Hanan, chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council, said while some of those living in the asylum seeker system would have their own funds, many were under pressure to survive on the weekly payment of €19.10 and therefore taking up illegal work.

“They are put in an artificial situation where they become dependent on very small sums of money,” he said. “Most of the people who come to Ireland as asylum seekers come from countries with no culture of welfare at all.

“People want to work and they are under pressure living on €19.10 a week,” he said, adding that the best way of dealing with any problems was to allow asylum seekers the right to employment.