Irish Examiner View: Direct provision in need of review

Asylum Seekers at a Direct provision in Cork in the summer of 2016

The pandemic has exposed flaws in many areas of public life — how might it not? Comfortable ideas, principles, and institutions are tested in unprecedented ways.

Private hospitals now accommodate public patients after a quick decision, despite decades of debate on the issue. How long that leveling persists is an open question.

Weaknesses or, more pertinently, the absence of real options in the way we shelter refugees, has also been exposed.

Just like our health service, this has been a fraught, niggling issue for years.

Our cultural experience of desperate emigration needles our conscience asking if we discharge this obligation as well as we should.

Today, we report on what the direct provision programme has cost since it was introduced as a stop-gap measure two decades ago. Private businesses have been paid more than €1.3bn, several more than €100m each. These are spectacular figures and raise questions about the services provided and if they match that investment.

Allegations from former minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who says reforms were stymied by Fine Gael and officials, must be answered too.

One of the early responses to the vulnerabilities exposed by the coronavirus is to remake processes that may not have inspired confidence. These as yet uncosted ambitions are noble, and the magnificent response of our health workers suggests that there is a willingness to accept that challenge.

Direct provision should be included in that review.