Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue which is of huge concern to many of us here. With good reason, direct provision can be called the Magdalen laundries of our time. I believe it will be the subject of inquiry in years to come. Direct provision centres are often referred to as holding camps and sites of deportability. The Free Legal Advice Centres states that these privately owned centres which are administered by the Government constitute a direct provision industry which makes a profit on direct provision. It is a privatised system, initiated by Fianna Fáil and run by highly profitable private companies making more than €50 million a year. Recently a centre in Limerick was closed by the Department of Justice and Equality due to health and safety standards being ignored. There remains no accountability or transparency and no clear process of tendering for these centres. There are no support services or expertise among staff working on sites. Since the implementation of the International Protection Act only the legal elements of the McMahon report have been introduced. The issues around direct provision are still the same and, according to asylum seekers, are getting worse.

I have raised the issue of children growing up in direct provision previously in the Chamber on both the Grace case and on the Tuam mother and baby home. I have said that I fear direct provision will be the child protection scandal of our time. It is incredibly frustrating to hear representatives speak time and again about the wrongs in our system in the past while dangerous circumstances exist in direct provision centres all across the State. Will we all be here wringing our hands again in ten or 20 years? I fear we will. The issues surrounding child protection and children’s health and well-being are huge. Families are sharing single rooms in cramped facilities with no space for children to study in peace. Children are regularly in close proximity to strangers. There is no place for recreation for children and no areas for visitors or school friends to come to spend time with them. Direct provision has been likened to an open prison, with people spending years in facilities that were originally built for people to remain in for six months. People have lost hope and their spirits are being killed. It is completely inhumane.

Where have we heard this sort of language before? Our history, which we recently discussed in the Chamber, is eerily similar. There is no independent complaints mechanism for people living in direct provision. There is no Ombudsman, Children's Ombudsman or HIQA oversight. This is institutional abuse of the highest order with vulnerable people being exploited for massive profit. People are existing on the €19 a week payment with no right to work and no right to education. Children who have grown up here within the school system, learning through English, study hard for their leaving certificate and receive the points for college only to be told they have no prospects for college or training and no chance to create a life and support themselves.

The International Protection Act was meant to solve this system but it appears to have been nothing but a Trojan horse. It has put direct provision on a permanent footing, and asylum seekers and NGOs who co-operated with the working group are extremely disappointed with the result. The introduction last month of a new asylum application procedure has created chaos for thousands of people living in direct provision. There are serious issues with the new single procedure for processing applications. People were sent a long application form recently with a totally unrealistic deadline and translations that were done using Google Translate, which beggars belief. There is a lack of people available to give legal advice and people are unfortunately making statements in error as a result of difficulties with the form, which will inevitably jeopardise their applications in future. The Department has given an extension after significant lobbying, which is welcome, but the whole system is stacked against people.

Direct provision should and must be scrapped. There are other models which can be looked at and which NGOs such as the Irish Refugee Council, Doras Luimní and Nasc have been proposing. At a time of unprecedented refugee crises across the world, when a focus on human rights is most needed, the whole system appears to be designed to facilitate and speed up deportations. We need to scrap direct provision and introduce a new system that treats people humanely, a system of which we can be proud rather than ashamed.

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