Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We in Sinn Féin believe the direct provision system is not acceptable for anybody and should be brought to an end without delay. This system is beneficial to nobody, least of all children. It institutionalises people, damages mental health, denies families privacy and forces a lack of work on them. People living under direct provision are forced by the State to live in inhumane conditions. They have often escaped their country of origin due to persecution, intimidation and violence. They are forced to raise children in cramped conditions, with virtually no disposable income, no resources to provide their children with basics such as school books and no power even over what they feed their children. At the end of last year 1,666 children were living in this system and many have spent their entire childhoods under this regime.

It is little wonder that the chief executive officer of the IRC, Ms Sue Conlan, reported in April this year that she knows of three asylum seeking children aged between 11 and 17 who have expressed suicidal thoughts. It is also little wonder that we witnessed such unrest over the summer in centres in Foynes, Athlone and Cork. In 2011, the IRC received correspondence from a family's general practitioner stating that three children were sharing one bed in one room with their parents in a separate bed. The family requested a transfer to a different hostel or for an adjoining room based on overcrowding. The council was assured that the family was provided with an additional cot and that the room met the relevant codes and requirements but the family remains in one room.

In 2012, a concerned father reported that his children were living in close proximity to men who were not known to them and to people with "severe" mental health conditions. The children along with their family remain in this centre. In 2012, a child presented hungry to the IRC on two occasions because she said she could not eat the reheated fried food provided for lunch. She could not sleep at night due to the noise at the centre and slept in until 1 p.m., missing breakfast as a result. The child was afraid to report this due to her fear of being transferred.

A woman living in the Eglinton hostel in Salthill in Galway spoke in April about her experience of the asylum system. She recounted an incident which occurred on the day a fellow resident received documentation granting permission to remain in Ireland. The woman's four year old child asked whether she and her family were also leaving the Eglinton hostel. When it was explained to the child that they had to wait for their papers the child brought some paper to her mother, gave it to her and said: "Mummy take it and let's leave." "That day I cried", she said. "I cried, I looked at the four corners of the room and I cried."

What makes this issue all the more distressing is that it is absolutely unnecessary. The Minister could, should she choose, abolish the direct provision system tomorrow. Direct provision does not have any legislative basis and came about as a result of a rush job by Fianna Fáil back in 1999. The system bears all the hallmarks of that era, including a complete lack of accountability and poor institutional oversight.

We do not have to wait for the immigration, residence and protection legislation to be passed to put a stop to direct provision. The only beneficiaries of the system are the companies which receive large sums for providing the services used by those seeking asylum. If a rational view were to prevail, this money would be better spent. An issue arises with regard to the awarding of contracts for the provision of services and their procurement. Why do the contracts always appear to be awarded to the same companies and how often are they awarded?

In this House and throughout the country, people have rightly expressed horror and shame at the treatment of children in industrial schools and women and children in Magdalen laundries and mother and baby homes. As we speak on this subject, abuse is taking place before our eyes in centres throughout the country. We have no excuse or alibi for treating people in this way. What is needed is a reformed, robust, efficient and human rights compliant asylum process in which direct provision has no part to play.

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