Human rights professor 'ashamed to be Irish' because of way asylum seekers are treated

The 72-year-old Co Clare academic is also involved with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.

She spoke to the Irish Examiner in a personal capacity this week, as the Government unveiled plans to overhaul accommodation provision for international protection applicants.

The reforms will see State-owned accommodation, delivering 14,000 beds by 2028. 

The white paper comes as figures published on Friday show there are 1,517 asylum seekers without accommodation.

It also follows the emergence of a ‘tent-city’ on Mount Street outside the International Protection Accommodation offices (IPAS) in south Dublin in recent months.

Prof Lynch said there is “deep racism” in Ireland that has been allowed to grow over a long time and the Government is at fault for not tackling the problem.

“There is a strong colour-based racism to what is happening to asylum seekers now. There is also cruelty and harm. 

Evil happens when ordinary people just go about their daily lives, while hundreds sleep on the street. 

"We also have nearly 14,000 homeless people in Ireland, including more than 4,000 children. 

“This is the responsibility of the Government who have people living in those conditions. 

"We are degrading Ireland by allowing this to happen, it is a normalisation of abuse.” 

Some of the asylum seekers who had been living in the tent city were moved to Crooksling, on the outskirts of south Dublin over St Patrick’s weekend, but many returned to the streets outside the IPAS building because of a lack of facilities.

However, the conditions there are no better — the occupants of the tents are using an open corner of the street as a toilet.

Prof Lynch spoke about these issues at the launch of the book Equity in the Workplace — Stories of Black Irish Women in Ireland in the Gresham Hotel last week.

The book, edited by UCD lecturer and diversity and race relations consultant Dr. Ebun Joseph, looks at the treatment of black women in both the private and public sector.

There were 13 black females interviewed for the book. Their experiences included harassment, bullying, and resistance to promotion in the workplace.

Ms Joseph, director of the Institute of Anti-Racism and Black Studies, said: “There is massive resistance to growing in the workplace, even when you have the qualifications. It’s about ‘we don’t know you therefore we don’t trust you’. We are still not fully accepted.

“The danger is a brain drain from their sending countries like Nigeria and a brain waste in their receiving countries like Ireland who don’t accept them as equals. It is like a social capital. They will deprive us in work because they don’t know us.

“There is progression in areas where we are needed, include the hospitals and IT. There are not many black teachers, black judges, and black social workers”.

She also raised concerns about the level of racism against asylum seekers, which is filtering down to young children.

“Children say it to each other like its ‘banter’, but it is racism. There are also mixed-race children not learning about their history. 

"They speak about their white mother or father, some of whom are racist themselves, and the child is saying ‘I am black too?’ It is a very confusing message for your mixed-race child if one parent is racist."

One of Ms Joseph’s current projects includes opening African libraries in Ireland to provide literature for black and mixed-raced children.

“It would provide support, history, music and culture, it would be a step in the right direction but there is a lot to do”, she said.

Prof Lynch received an applause when she told the book launch that she was “ashamed to be Irish”.

“I meant what I said,” she told the Irish Examiner. 

"It reflects a new callousness and coldness that has evolved in this country towards vulnerable people. 

"There is no excuse for not housing that number of people in a country that has ample wealth to do so. 

To leave another human being lying on the street, and that includes Irish homeless people, in the snow and rain when there are buildings that we could redefine to shelter them, it is appalling.

New plans by Government will take years to implement, she said.

Those plans include providing 14,000 state owned beds by the end of 2028 as part of a wider initiative to make 35,000 beds available. 

The proposed “blended model” also consists of 10,000 commercially run emergency accommodation beds and another 11,000 contingency accommodation beds. 

During covid, the Government introduced emergency legislation that saw homeless people given immediate shelter.

“When that happened, the Government took control of the private hospitals. Yes, private hospitals made money out of it, that’s another issue, but the legislation was there. 

"Also, the EU has failed people on a huge level. You can’t just say we will treat the problem by keeping people out. 

"There needs to be a European forum on how to manage this, it is not just about paying people to be kept in camps, which is effectively what they are doing," Prof Lynch said.

She also hit out at “middle class white people claiming ownership of black people’s stories”.

According to the 2022 Census of Population, 67,546 people here identify as black or black Irish with an African background, while 8,699 people identify as black or black Irish with any other black background.

ESRI figures from 2022 showed for April to June, that year, non-Irish citizens accounted for just under half a million (495,100) people classified as ‘in the labour force’.

However, in that same year, a survey of 118 members of the African Professional Network of Ireland revealed half of black professionals working here believed their ethnicity had negatively impacted their career opportunities and career progression.

One of the authors of the book, Winifred Ikhine Akinyemi, moved to Ireland from Nigeria 20 years ago and is now working as a civil servant.

In university, she studied law and was called to the Nigerian bar 30 years ago. 

She has 13 years’ experience of working as a lawyer which included a decade as a corporate solicitor in the financial sector in Lagos.

Her last project in Nigeria was the coordinator of the company’s initial public officer on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. In Ireland, she searched for jobs in her area of legal expertise which is corporate governance.

Ms Akinyemi said she never got a job in that sector.

“I had to abandon the legal job market; it was a heartbreaking decision because all I wanted was to be a lawyer. 

"I didn’t get the recognition for my legal qualifications and work experience and had to do jobs for which I was overqualified."

Ms Akinyemi’s first job here was as a FÁS trainee administrator with an NGO called Spirasi which supports newly-arrived asylum seekers and survivors of torture.

She later worked as project worker for Spirasi’s mental health project for asylum seekers, a pilot project funded by the European Refugee fund and the HSE.

Her work took her to Co Laois but like many single mothers in Ireland, childcare was a huge issue. 

“I got a lot of experience from the job but when the recession hit, the pilot project was not mainstreamed. I became unemployed. 

"For the next six months, I lived on my savings and could not bear to claim social welfare payments.

“Growing up in Nigeria where there was no social protection, my middle-class family status socialised me to see this as receiving handouts which is considered shameful and disgraceful. 

"The positive thing is that I was able to use this opportunity to go back to education and retrain."

She graduated with a first-class bachelor’s degree in development studies from Kimmage Development Studies Centre (now part of Maynooth University) and further obtained a 2.1 master’s degree in international development from UCD.

“I worked and trained in many areas and am now integrated into mainstream Irish society as a full time Irish civil servant."

Since joining the Department of Foreign Affairs, she has contributed to Ireland’s international development policy, diaspora policy and presently works in the Global Property Management Unit.

The mother-of-one is very active in her local community in South Dublin and in the African community.

“We need more representation of black people in government spaces especially in decision-making positions. 

Decisions on policies are made based on what people in the room know, but they do not have experience of racism and discrimination, it is a lived experience.

“No two black women are the same, we should never generalise.

"We also need more black people in the interview panels. 

"Presently, the Public Appointment Service is working on this and have invited relevant people from diverse backgrounds including myself to join the interview board.

“As more black people are recruitment into the civil service, supports should be put in place as there are many cases of people experiencing unfair treatment in the workplace.” 

The Department of Integration said the National Action Plan Against Racism (NAPAR) was approved for publication by the Government in March 2023.

“The plan includes an action to introduce measures to combat racism in employment. 

"The specific measures underpinning this action have yet to be developed; however, work to implement the NAPAR is ongoing and employment outcomes for minority ethnic groups are considered a priority issue," it said.