Mr. Bulelani Mfaco:

I thank the committee for inviting us to the meeting. The Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland is a platform for asylum seekers to join together in unity and purpose. The group is made up of people who are directly affected by the direct provision system. As people who are currently undergoing the international protection application process we, unlike experts and NGOs, are uniquely placed to offer direction to the committee on the many issues on which it has asked us to comment. The content and recommendations in our submission are all directly informed by the experiences of our members, asylum seekers who live every day of their lives under the appalling system of direct provision. The purpose of our submission is to gather together our collective experiences to inform the committee and to make a series of key proposals that would make the Irish asylum system compatible with minimum human rights standards.

We do not view human rights as gifts that governments bestow on people. They are rights and entitlements we all possess by virtue of being human. People cannot be treated as less than others and, indeed, less than human merely because of differences in nationality and citizenship. In May 2017, the Supreme Court told the Department of Justice and Equality that as asylum seekers, we can rely on constitutional protections that affect us as human beings. That simply means fundamental human rights are not reserved for Irish, EU or other legally resident nationals in Ireland and that an asylum seeker child does not have to be Irish for the best interest of the child to prevail. It cannot be in the best interest of the child, therefore, to ban parents from working.

There are children in direct provision forced to grow up in State-sponsored poverty as their parents are unable to provide for their material needs. Many of them are too ashamed to tell their friends in school where they live. In a direct provision centre in Kildare, children dumped their sandwiches underneath their seats on the bus because they were too ashamed of carrying the same sandwich for lunch every day. A mother once told an Irish court that she had to sell sexual favours while living in direct provision centres to support her child.

The asylum system must uphold and vindicate the fundamental human rights of all international protection applicants, including family rights, the right to privacy, the right to education and the right to work. The best interest of the child must prevail. Vulnerable persons must be looked after. LGBT+ rights, women’s rights and the right to religious freedom must be safeguarded. We receive so many texts from distressed asylum seekers. One such text was from a woman who had spent about five years living in direct provision and was ostracised for having HIV. She had no privacy to take medication, and as soon as room mates found out what the pills were for, people began gossiping about her. Another text we received was from a queer woman who was told by the International Protection Office that she was not credible, thus her application for asylum rejected. This means that the IPO believes she is lying about her sexual orientation and wants her to prove it. She is not the only LGBT+ applicant to be treated in such a manner. That dehumanising practice of assuming asylum seekers are lying must stop. The role of the asylum system is to vindicate peoples’ right to seek asylum and to live in safety in Ireland, not to dehumanise people. The rights of the child and the protection of children in the international protection system must be a priority of the asylum system. Undocumented minors who turn 18 before receiving a final decision on their asylum claim must be supported to live independently and not be shipped off to direct provision centres.

Deportations are brutal and dehumanising and can have no part of an ethical and human rights-centred approach to asylum and migration. That is why many people commit suicide in direct provision centres. Some attempt to commit suicide because they fear that they might be deported, especially when they get letters from the Department of Justice and Equality saying their application has been rejected. Many of the people who are taking sleeping pills in direct provision struggle to sleep for fear that the next letter in the post could be a deportation order. We also believe that no child born in Ireland, in the asylum system or undocumented should ever be served with a deportation order. The Minister for Justice and Equality can, should, and must introduce a scheme to regularise undocumented people in Ireland, with long-term residency for all children born in the State to non-EU parents. That is not asking too much. We are not asking the Minister to make them all citizens. It is just regularisation so that people who are already living here can get on with their lives.

People seeking protection in Ireland are entitled to live an independent life with their families in accommodation that upholds the rights to privacy, dignity, and integrity of the person. The warehousing of asylum seekers in direct provision centres throughout the country, without certainty of time for stay, amounts to effective incarceration as many asylum seekers are divorced from the social, economic and political life of the country in the same manner as prisoners in Mountjoy Prison. Among our key recommendations is that the legal process has to be reformed. The process of seeking asylum is first and foremost a legal process so it is essential that people receive all necessary legal advice and that the system is orientated towards vindicating people's right to seek asylum and safety. The right to work must be immediate and unrestricted for all people seeking protection in Ireland. At present, people who are on appeal are excluded from working. People should be accommodated in reception for no longer than three months before moving into housing in the community. We do not believe people should be segregated and living in centres. They should be living in communities along with everybody else in Ireland. Direct provision should be abolished and people seeking asylum in Ireland should have access to the same housing supports via their local authorities as is the case for others. Full and tuition fee free access to education and training at all levels must be available to international protection applicants. If the State keeps a person in direct provision for five years and then gives him or her a letter saying he or she can live in Ireland, where does the State expect the person to start living? These recommendations are not insurmountable for the Government. Uganda has more than 1 million refugees and is one of the poorest countries on earth. We are human beings like all of you. All we ask is that we be treated as such. The very fact that people have to ask the Government to treat them humanely should shame all of you.