Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I understand that the European Council will again be discussing migration and there are some points on this subject I want to bring to the attention of the House.

Some residents of the direct provision centre at the Kinsale Road in Cork have recently received correspondence from International Protection Accommodation Services, IPAS, stating that they are to be transferred to a disused Army camp in County Wicklow. These residents are asylum seekers who have successfully applied for asylum. They now have their papers but have to date been, understandably, unable to source new accommodation because of the housing crisis. Other residents have received a different item of correspondence. These are people whose applications for asylum have been rejected but who are currently seeking judicial review in the High Court. They are to be sent to Knockalisheen in County Clare where they are to be accommodated in tents. They are being told that they are to be evicted from the tented accommodation after just four weeks. I understand that other people in a similar position in other parts of the country are being sent here too.

I do not have a report on the conditions at Knockalisheen. However, I have a report from the community action tenant union, CATU, which is campaigning alongside the residents on the conditions is Wicklow. The Wicklow camp in Kilbride is a grim place. It is in the middle of nowhere. There is no village, no shop or no facilities. The place itself has bunk beds crammed together. There is no storage space and there is a ban on anyone entering or exiting after 7 p.m. Imagine what this means for people forced to live there. They may have medical or psychiatric needs. They may have lived in the city for the last ten years. Now they are being uprooted and cast into a wilderness. One person has a job she may have to quit. Another has a child going to the Munster Technical University. I do not know what she is going to do.

At the same time as these transfers are taking place, I understand that there are refugees from Ukraine who have received correspondence stating that they are to be moved from accommodation in private homes to Kinsale Road. It is clear that a very large scale dislocation is being organised here, yet there is no transparency around it. How many ex-asylum seekers with papers are being moved to the Wicklow camp? How many people are being sent to County Clare and face the choice of self-deportation or imminent homelessness? How many refugees are being told to leave their current place of residence and are being moved to the Kinsale Road direct provision centre? Is this happening just in Cork or is it nationwide? There is an unprecedented number of refugees and asylum seekers coming to our country. No one is saying that dealing with the challenges posed by this is easy but what is going on in Cork is pretty ugly. All in all, it represents a new low in State racism. This is happening on the watch of this Government. Indeed, it is happening on the watch of a Green Party Minister. I hope that some good can come of the fact that I have been able to shed some light on what is going on.

See this speech in context