Irish Examiner view: We must do more to help most needy

Capuchin Day Centre manager Alan Bailey.

People arriving on flights to Ireland, seeking international protection, are being forced to sleep on our streets.

Take a second to let those words sink in. Consider the anger we feel at homelessness and the carelessness with which most of us treat people holding out a paper cup in hope, rather than expectation.

Then consider that these people are often fleeing war, fleeing threats to their lives and hoping that this country that sells itself around the world for its céad míle fáilte might provide them with that shelter.

Our Department for Integration can no longer do what it should, what we have a legal obligation to do, and provide accommodation for people claiming international protection.

Today, people claiming refuge here are being told it may take up to a week to find them somewhere to sleep for the night, and that’s if accommodation becomes available at all.

Perhaps the most vivid example of the travesty of the situation we find ourselves in can be found in the people trying to provide sanctuary for everyone who needs it on our streets.

Capuchin Day Centre manager Alan Bailey said he was expecting an influx of people.

The centre already caters for hundreds, each day. It receives around 10% of the €4m it costs to stay open from government, the rest comes from donations.

Nasc, the Migrant and Refugee Rights Centre, chief executive Fiona Hurley acknowledged that the Government is under “enormous pressure”. She is right, though if they have a right to govern based on our laws, they must hold themselves to account for our failures.

But it is what the Nasc chief executive has to say about our current state of affairs that should send shockwaves through all right-minded people who hear what she has to say: “These are some of the worst conditions that we have ever seen for international protection applicants coming to Ireland.”

A notice on the International Protection Office door yesterday read: “Support may be available in the form of food/showers ONLY — Capuchin Day Centre, 29 Bow street.”

The subtext being: you are here, yes, but you are on your own.