Our treatment of asylum seekers is the modern-day scandal we ignore

I HAVE a small girl who appears to be allergic to going to bed. Every night we make a deliberate visit to the kitchen for a last-minute snack but still she shouts from her room upstairs about how she is either hungry or thirsty.

You don’t need to be a parenting expert to recognise this as an obvious delaying tactic. She’s also, though, a very picky eater, and consumes her food far slower than the rest of the family. So there are some nights I reckon when she is being genuine about her hunger. It is hard to tell though.

I share this detail because I am reminded of the annoyingly sweet habits of my own little treasure, and how we as parents can choose to accommodate them or not, when thinking of those families who do not have these simple choices. These are the families who live in direct provision, a system which marked its 14th birthday last week.