Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

One of the scandalous aspects of the direct provision system is how it has often left direct provision residents and asylum seekers at the mercy of management and those in management abusing their power against them. What measures are in place to stop this happening with regard to Ukrainian refugees who are staying in places that did not previously have refugees, for example, hotels?

I was in touch with Ukrainian refugees who told me an extremely concerning story about what has been taking place at The Address hotel in Citywest in which 141 Ukrainian refugees are staying. The State is paying the hotel for them to stay there. They spoke about the extremely poor quality of food being provided to them, which is overwhelmingly fried food that is having very negative consequences for their children's health in particular. They have seen a deterioration in their children's health and in the quality of food since they moved in there on 1 July of last year.

They have no capacity to cook their own food. They have no access to the kitchen and cannot have proper cooking facilities in the hotel rooms. They are now paying for this food, and since they have been paying for it they approached the management and asked whether the food could be improved and whether they could have more fruit and vegetables and so on. The approach of management was horrendous and extremely rude and brusque, including someone saying, "You need to eat less so you can be slim like me." It is a horrendous abuse of power. Then, to top it off, the three representatives of the refugees were evicted from the hotel. They were evicted from the only place they have to live because they were standing up for the refugees and negotiating with management about that issue. It is a horrendous abuse of power. What measures are in place to ensure this sort of thing cannot happen?

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