No way to treat refugees

I HAVE the utmost sympathy for the residents of Priory Hall.

These families have been forced out of their homes into a situation where parents are sharing a bedroom with school-going children, where they are unable to cook or control their children’s diet, where their children have nowhere to play or do homework.

To make matters worse, some of these families have had to be moved a second time due to a prior booking in their original lodgings. This is no way to treat innocent families with young children.

However, this is precisely the manner in which the Irish state treats applicants for asylum. Under the Direct Provision system, families live in hostel-style accommodation, where families generally share one bedroom and meals are provided three times a day. Parents have no control over where they will be accommodated.

They can be transferred to another part of the country with little notice, disrupting schooling and what ties they may have made in the community. Asylum seekers are denied the ability to work to provide for their families and cannot cook for their children. It is a life without privacy, autonomy or dignity.

For the residents of Priory Hall, their ordeal will be over in a matter of weeks, but the majority of asylum seekers will spend years in Direct Provision without any possibility of changing their circumstances. Last week, Deputy Ellis decried the fact that the residents of Priory Hall were being made into refugees in their own country, but why is it acceptable that people seeking protection in Ireland should be treated like this at all?

Sharon Waters

Communications Officer

Irish Refugee Council

Ballast House

Aston Quay

Dublin 2