Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the matter of the report produced this week by the Irish Refugee Council, entitled State Sanctioned Child Poverty and Exclusion, which deals with children of asylum seekers in direct provision centres. The report was written by Samantha Arnold and is valuable because it provides an analysis of the difficulties faced by these children and their families. It is particularly appropriate that the report should issue on the day of the decision to hold a children's rights referendum and that we should discuss it in this House the day the wording of the constitutional amendment is published.

Of the 5,098 residents in direct provision centres, over a third are children who spend a significant proportion of their childhood in direct provision accommodation. I have raised the issue of direct provision accommodation in the House before and on that occasion I instanced the experiences of those whom I personally know and some of whom I would consider friends. This report is more focused, and in many cases, shocking. It details reports of poor accommodation, overcrowding, malnutrition, poverty and educational exclusion, among others, amounting to a breach of these children's human rights. Alongside this report, the special rapporteur on children, Mr. Geoffrey Shannon, in his 2012 report highlighted the real risk of child abuse in direct provision centres, where single parents are required to share with strangers and where families with teenage children of opposite gender are required to share one room.

Many of the recommendations in this report are practical and achievable. I will read some of them into the record as it would be a wise exercise. One recommendation is to ensure that accommodation centres are in a good condition, with heating, hot water and cleanliness guaranteed. Other recommendations include children having access to private toilet facilities, families having adequate space and parents having rooms separate from their children; the provision of play and homework space for children; and that cultural and religious needs should be considered in consultation with families before they are dispersed throughout the country.

These recommendations are an indication that the basic and fundamental standards must be adhered to in order to protect children. With regard to dispersal, there is a direct accommodation centre in my constituency of Galway West - Lisbrook House - which received notice approximately two weeks ago by means of letter that the accommodation centre would close and the families would be moved by the end of the month. The correspondence took no cognisance of the fact that the children had started school, parents had bought books and uniforms and the children were integrating into the classes. There was no idea of doing this during the summer, when the children could have easily integrated in a new classroom. One resident told me a child had spent four days in their first week of school crying and on the day the child stopped crying, the parents were told the child would have to move anyway. This is an example of how, sometimes, the system treats people as numbers rather than individuals with rights or families with obligations.

In reading the report I can only imagine what would be said if we were looking at these conditions in any other setting. What would happen if we were seeking a guarantee of clean facilities and hot water in homeless services or private toilet facilities for children in our youth services? In direct provision and with the class of people which the system treats as "not Irish", there is a different view. This is wrong and reminiscent of the last vestiges of institutionalisation and institutionalism. As a country, we have a very poor record in that regard.

When I last spoke on this, I argued that we could be looking at the genesis of the next Cloyne or Ryan report. This report calls for an independent inquiry alongside practical recommendations. This is a wise move. We have been warned with this report and we must use it to prevent abuse right now.

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