Dáil debates

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Direct Provision for Asylum Seekers: Motion [Private Members]

 

9:05 pm

Photo of Derek NolanDerek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I support the overwhelming desire of the motion and counter-motion to reform the system of direct provision. This is a welcome debate and a matter on which I have campaigned and spoken in the House on several occasions. It is important that, as a Parliament, we reaffirm our belief in the refugee system and recognise our international obligation to those who are fleeing persecution based on race, nationality, political opinion or membership of a social group. We should say we need and respect the system and recognise our duties in that regard because they are often forgotten in the debate.

We need only to note the disturbances and turmoil right across the world to realise there are people who must genuinely flee the place they live because of these kinds of pressures. While we have an international obligation, it is natural to have a system in place to decide who is a refugee deserving of protection and who is not. A call must be made. What we have, however, is a shambles and does not work. In the first instance, we take people very quickly after they get off the plane or other means of transport and throw them into a system without obtaining adequate information or making a correct assessment. There should be proper legal aid, discussion with the asylum seeker, etc.

Second, we have a refugee appeals tribunal which, although it has significantly improved, rejected case after case for years. The Minister of State mentioned the 40,000 people who have been allowed to remain here. I question how many have been granted refugee status. Owing to the inadequacies of the legislation and decisions that are so dodgy that they merit judicial review, people spend years in direct provision.

I came across the plight of those in direct provision before I was even a councillor, back in 2008 when I used to work with Michael D. Higgins. We used to hold a clinic in the Menlo Park Hotel, opposite Lisbrook House, which was then a refugee centre. We used to deal with case after case involving people going through the system. Would the Minister of State believe that I am still dealing with some of them? There are people in the Eglington Hostel in Salthill, which the Minister of State visited with me, who are in the system for ten or 11 years. They have children who are ten years old who have spent their entire lives living in the direct provision system. If ever there were an example demonstrating that the current system is not only in need of improvement but also wrong and not working, that is it.

There are two steps we need to take. First, the working group the Minister of State has set up, on which I commend him, needs to put in place a system that works. Simply putting in place a new combined procedure with subsidiary protection and refugee status and applying it to or grafting it onto the current system is not enough; the current system and its processes, by which people should be treated fairly and in which their applications should be dealt with comprehensively, needs to be examined also. I ask that the working group do so. Second, we need to deal compassionately with those who have been in the system for so long and acknowledge the system we have in place is not working and should be made better. We need to examine the conditions and amount we pay people. What we really need to do is embrace the reality that the people who have been in the system for ten or 11 years and who have children here are going to stay.

I have not come across one such family which has been told to go home. Let us get the system working and treat these people with the urgency required, because the nihilism, waste of human potential and emptiness that existence brings with it, of living in and sharing one room and having limited moneys with which to go out and interact with society, have a damaging impact, not only on people's well-being but also on their mental health and ambitions as human beings.

A number of people have attempted to discuss and do something about this issue. When I used to question the previous Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, about the legislation coming through, he constantly reported that the new protection Bill was just six months away. That was back in 2011, when I was first elected to this House. Every time he was asked about it, it was just another six months away. I am not sure what it is about the Department, but when it comes to reforming this area of law and the asylum system, something is wrong and it cannot get it done. Will the Minister of State be vigilant and ensure he pushes this reform through, because it seems there is a reluctance to reform it?

I am concerned by and uncomfortable with the fact that Ireland has opted out of the EU common European asylum system. This common system sets out basic human rights and nothing more. It guarantees basic reception conditions which incorporate human rights as asserted by the European Court of Justice. One of these basic rights is the reception conditions directive, which mandates conditions to which people are entitled in asylum seeking centres. We have not signed up to that directive. The basic conditions include the right to work and so on. The European Court of Justice has said this is a basic human right and we need to look at that as well.

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