Lack of housing sees 470 refugees stuck in centres

There are 470 asylum seekers who have been granted refugee status in Ireland but who are unable to leave direct provision centres because there is nowhere else for them to go.

Eugene Banks, principal officer of the Department of Justice Reception and Integration Agency, revealed the figure during a conference at University College Cork yesterday co-hosted by Nasc, the Migrant and Refugee Rights Centre and the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights (CCJHR) at UCC.

Mr Bankssaid they were working on improving the direct provision system for asylum seekers, including developing a set of standards, based on Hiqa standards, that would be applicable to all direct provision centres in the future and having an inspection process that was “100% independent”.