Tag Archives: Direct Provision

uplift

Outside the Department of Justice, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin yesterday

Emily Duffy, on behalf of Uplift, a community organisation focused on ‘people powered change’ writes:

[Yesterday] we handed in a petition of over 1,200 signatures to the Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald to call on her to end the direct provision system for the 4,309 asylum seekers in Ireland.

We are supporting the scheme to clear the backlog of those lives stuck in direct provision, and for the Irish government to live up to its responsibility to protect the most basic rights of everyone living on this island.

Previously: Direct Provision Care Packages

Scheme To Clear Asylum Backlog (Irish Refugee Council)

903625659036255990362523B24tpZyIcAElknU

90362564

Campaigners calling for the end of the direct provision system outside the Dáil this afternoon

Universal Children’s Day?

Pcs via Sam Boal/Photocall ireland, Jane Mahony and Grace McDermott

Update:

10426529_976627612352199_8755746603489604331_n

90362554

90362552-1

The Direct Provision protest moves from Leinster House at the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Pic via Sam Boal/Photocall ireland and Doras Luimini

Screen Shot 2014-11-14 at 12.37.08Screen Shot 2014-11-14 at 12.20.02Screen Shot 2014-11-14 at 12.21.30

UCD law lecturer Dr Liam Thornton tweets from the High Court as Judge Colm MacEochaidh delivers his judgement on the challenge taken by a family of two against the direct provision system.  

The family of two, a mother and child, took the action, arguing that the direct provision system is unconstitutional.

The family have been in direct provision centres for more than four years. They claimed the system was unlawfully established, has no legal basis, continues to operate unlawfully, violating the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. They also claimed the work ban and blanket ban on receiving social welfare payments breaches personal, family and equality rights under the Constitution.

Liam Thornton

Background: Direct Provision System Challenged Before the Irish High Court: Day 1 (Human Rights in Ireland blog)

lucky

You may recall this video.

JP writes:

“I hope you can help. I was struck by the stories of people living under Direct Provision in the Kinsale Road Asylum Centre, Co Cork you featured last week and want to organise the sending of care packages to the adults and the children at all these centres not just in Cork. Does anyone know if this is against some rule or even legal? Also is it possibly to get a list of residents and what items they especially need. Thank you.”

Anyone?

Previously: ‘Three People Live In This Room, I’m One Of Them.’

direct

The Kinsale Road Asylum Centre, Co Cork.

Mark Malone writes:

“Powerful video testimony by Paula Geraghty from some people living in the Direct Provision system. Cameras rarely make it inside for us to see the state of these places, and it’s even rarer for the public to see those most affected and marginalised by a clearly morally bankrupt (if economically profitable for some) way of treating our fellow humans.”

BxzBhcqIAAEsWHx

Asylum-seekers, including children, protest outside the Ashbourne House Hotel direct provision centre this morning

Barry Roche, of the Irish Times, reports:

Asylum-seekers at a second Cork reception centre have begun a protest at the direct provision system – the fifth such centre nationally to see protests in the space of the past week.

Up to 90 residents of the Ashbourne House Hotel in Glounthaune in east Cork began a protest this morning, highlighting the delays that they are experiencing.

Asylum-seekers at second Cork centre begin protest (Irish Times)

Pic via Brian O’Connell

UPDATE:

10367785_866304143380026_5184563362179481556_n

Via Evening Echo (Facebook)

ro

Further to his earlier appearance.

Senator Ronan Mullen speaking in the Seanad earlier on the issue of Direct Provision:

The treatment of women in the system is deplorable. There are several male-only reception centres in the State. But there are none which provide solely for women. Many women who seek asylum in the State are fleeing the most gruesome and most unimaginable conditions sometimes involving sexual abuse or rape. And for these victims to be placed in a system where there’s an underlying fear perhaps in some cases of a recurrence of abuse is really shocking.

*cough*

Listen here.

Download here.

Earlier: A Place Apart

Previously: Say It Ain’t Ro

BxrrHFiIgAAO-d1

 

Legislation to change radically Ireland’s direct provision system will be proposed today.

Independent Senator Rónán Mullen will call on the Government to establish female-only and family-only reception centres and grant the right to seek employment.

He said managing an asylum policy was never easy for any country but changes in the operation of the direct provision system were needed urgently.

Introduce female-only direct provision centres, says Senator (Mary Minihan, Irish Times)

3841194_orig

Two hundred and thirty one phone cards belonging to an adult asylum seeker from West Africa. At the time the photograph was taken, the asylee had been waiting six years for their case to be dealt with. Every week, the asylee used half their €19.10 weekly stipend from the State to phone home

You may recall RTÉ’s Brian O’Connell’s reports on Today With Sean O’Rourke last week about how some asylee women – who are not allowed work – are engaging in prostitution to supplement the €19.10 they receive a week.

In some instances, some mothers said they are engaging in prostitution as a means to make life financially easier for their children.

After his reports, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said she would be asking the Reception and Integration Agency – which oversees the Direct Provision system – for a report on the matter.

Further to this, Mr O’Connell tweeted:

Screen Shot 2014-09-09 at 01.54.51

Hmmm.

Previously: ‘He Took Me Around Some Bushes’

“I Will Certainly Be Looking For A Report”

Pic: Rory O’Neill, via Asylum Archive