‘It’s difficult for me and there’s nobody to help. I cry a lot’

“I’m dressing. Get out!”

It’s a typical screech from a young teenage girl. But for Bode Sanni-Odukoya, it’s always the start of another incendiary argument between her two eldest children — an argument that they can never walk away from.

Since 2005, Bode and her children have been living, eating and sleeping from one small room at a Cork residential centre for asylum seekers.

The lack of space was difficult when the children were smaller but now that her daughter and son are 13 and 11, it’s a nightmare.

Never did they think when they first opened the door on their small room, that they would still be living there six years later.

A plywood partition was installed in their room recently so the two eldest have their own sleeping quarters.

“The children, they never stop fighting. Everyone is looking for space but we are all just cramped here. It’s difficult for me and there’s nobody to help. I cry a lot,” says Bode who lives at the Kinsale Road centre on the outskirts of Cork city.

The children go to school in Ballyphehane and Togher. Getting them there each morning has been another nightmare for Bode, who has a weekly income of €46.10.

“The department’s refused to help me out with transport. Before my friend let me borrow her car, I was walking 15 minutes with the children to Frankfield before we’d get a bus to the city and then a second bus to Togher for school. Every day they were late. Thank god the principal understands. She has always been very good to me.”

Nasc, the Irish Immigration Support Centre, say Bode is one of many parents who are struggling to explain to her children why they are still living in limbo, waiting years for an asylum decision and the possibility of wresting back control over their lives.

Across the corridor from Bode, there were screeches of joy last week when the European Court of Justice ruled that Ireland will have to discontinue the practice of denying the right to reside and work to parents of Irish citizen children who live here, and on whom these children depend.

“I had to sit down and tell the children that it didn’t make any difference to us. Jessy isn’t considered an Irish citizen even though she was born here,” said Bode, who is separated from her husband.

Bode’s two eldest children, Besit and Coyosi, were born in Nigeria and her youngest, Jessy, was born here five years ago. However, she was born after the citizenship referendum which stated that one of her parents would have to live in Ireland for at least three of the four years preceding her birth. Bode was pregnant when she first arrived here from Nigeria.

Claire McCarthy, policy and advocacy officer with Nasc, says Bode’s story is far from unusual.

“Lawyers and NGOs in the migrant sector have struggled to explain to others why their children, who were born in Ireland and who have never lived in any other country, but who are not citizens of the state, will not benefit from last week’s decision,” she said.

Another parent, an asylum seeker, said yesterday: “I walked in the parade. I always do, because I love this country, where I can be safe, where my children can be safe. They are Irish and I am African, so I wear African dress, and wave Irish flags, together. But I will hold a lump in my throat as I think that they may still reject us, even after all this time.”