Study: Refugees isolated in hostels

ALMOST 7,000 people living in Government-funded hostel accommodations are socially excluded, isolated and at risk of exploitation, a major study has found.

The report, One Size Doesn’t Fit All, carried out by Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC), examines in detail the system of direct provision, whereby asylum seekers are effectively cut off from society and forced to live by stringent rules and regulations in privately run state-funded accommodation on about €19 a week.

FLAC’s legal analysis of direct provision, launched today, has come to the conclusion the system is deeply flawed and made to suit the people running it, not the needs of those who must live in it.