Dr. Liam Thornton:

I thank the committee for the invitation to discuss the system of direct provision in Ireland. I am an associate professor in UCD school of law, and human rights legal obligations and the system of direct provision has been a topic of my published research for some time. I have provided the committee with a full submission and wish to highlight some of my key recommendations, which I invite the committee to consider. These include recommendations on better respecting and protecting the right to work for international protection applicants and reducing the length of time before applicants can access the labour market, as well as ensuring this includes all international protection applicants, given many, due to legacy issues, may not be provided with the right to work. I invite the committee to recognise that direct provision, in and of itself, is a gross violation on the rights of the child and, indeed, all persons who may be subjected to this system. I echo many of the recommendations based on the detailed expertise of the Children's Rights Alliance and Nasc and would further call for an increase in the direct provision allowance, now called the daily expenses allowance. In particular, as a first step, we must ensure that all children within direct provision receive the payment of child benefit. This can be achieved through an amendment to the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005.

I also make a number of recommendations on aged-out separated children, who are children who enter Ireland aged under 18 without a parent or guardian. Once they reach the age of 18, they are moved into direct provision. The direct provision system, as an institutionalised system, is absolutely not appropriate for aged-out separated children. As the committee has heard over previous weeks and again today, the system of direct provision is one that sets human rights at naught and destabilises and impacts negatively on the rights of the child, the rights of families and the rights of individuals subject to this system. Established as a system that was intended to last no more than six months, as Ms Finn mentioned, we now have a system of institutionalised living which many international protection applicants will be subjected to for many years.

The role of law and State administration to date as regards the needs of persons within the international protection system is one that rejects international protection applicants as being holders of human rights. The State’s approach to international protection applicants has sought to justify years of institutionalised living, years of the inability to do something as simple as decide what to eat and when to eat, years of having to live in hostel-style accommodation, with little to no say about who they can or must interact with, and years of children never seeing their parents or guardians prepare a meal except under the watchful eye of accommodation managers.

What value is the phrase "human rights" where the right to decide such intimate and basic aspects of one’s life is withdrawn for years, without any end date? Convicted of no crime, international protection applicants are segregated from Irish society and condemned to live a half-life. That so many other countries in the European Union treat persons seeking international protection considerably worse than Ireland is no justification for Ireland refusing to respect, protect, vindicate and fulfil the full array of human rights which all individuals, including international protection applicants, have under the State's freely accepted international human rights legal obligations.

Based on my analysis of the law, policy and administration of the system of direct provision, I have concluded that the direct provision system is not fit for purpose and should be abolished. Alternatives to the system must respect, protect, vindicate and fulfil all human rights - civil, political, economic, social and cultural - while persons within the international protection system have their claims for international protection assessed. Failures in State administration for timely determination on whether an individual meets the definition of being in need of protection is no defence to the significant rights violations to which international protection applicants have been subjected for almost 20 years.

Replacing direct provision may not happen overnight. There will be cost implications, as protecting human rights is never cost-free. However, from nearly 20 years of testimony on the lived experience of international protection applicants and human rights-based research, much of it conducted by NASC, the Children's Rights Alliance and the Irish Refugee Council, one thing is very clear: Direct provision was and still is a gross breach of the most fundamental human right we all should have - the right to dignity and respect.