Direct provision protesters urge minister to meet them at centre
They said they will continue their protest until there is a satisfactory response with clear terms, guidelines and timelines to deal with their concerns.
The action began at the Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre (KRAC) near Cork City last Monday, when residents spoke publicly about their frustrations, some having spent a decade in the system waiting for the outcome of asylum applications or court actions. The residents of another Cork direct provision centre, in a former hotel in Glounthaune, began a separate protest last Thursday and other centres in Laois, Limerick and Westmeath have also been the scene of protests in recent weeks.
A statement from KRAC Asylum Today, on behalf of Kinsale Road residents, said they can no longer tolerate the inhumane way they are being treated over many years, including by the Government and the Department of Justice’s Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) which oversees accommodation and other services in the direct provision system.
Their key demands are for an end to direct provision and deportations, the right to work and access third-level education, real improvements in general living conditions, and expediting the time it takes to process applications.
“The promises we have received in written form from the RIA have been empty. Some of our concerns were designated as being ‘under review’, with no deadline for their resolution,” they said.
“We have asked RIA to request the minister for justice, or her representative, to come and meet with us. We feel that, even with the limited rights we have, we should at least be directly involved in making decisions that affect our lives; we are the only people who truly know what the asylum regime has done,” said KRAC Asylum Today.
The department said Minister of State Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has made it clear the issues are going to be addressed by the working group
