Fiach MacConghail (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I second the motion before the House and extend a warm welcome to the Minister. I acknowledge that both he and his Cabinet colleagues have not set out the motion and it appears to have all-party support.

This is a challenging issue for all of us in Irish society, as an issue had arisen in the early 2000s which moved the Government to create a direct provision scheme in Ireland without a legislative or statutory basis. At the time, the Government hoped that it would resolve a temporary issue, although this ended up in a haphazard fashion, as noted by Senator van Turnhout. It was hoped the issue would go away; it was a case of out of sight, out of mind. Before my time as a Senator, I had no clue really as to what was involved in direct provision. I was a member of the middle class, although politically engaged and perhaps socially naïve. We speak sometimes about what the Seanad can contribute to or do for people and what it did for me is opened my eyes to the narrative of direct provision in Ireland 13 years later.

According to the latest statistics from the Reception and Integration Agency monthly report of June 2013, as quoted in the motion, there are 4,624 residents "live on the system", of whom 1,732 are children. Statistics, rules and regulation tell one story but only when I visited two accommodation centres, one in Athlone and the other in Hatch Hall, did the reality become quite sobering. At this stage I owe a debt of gratitude to my colleagues, Senator van Turnhout and Zappone, who allowed this "gifted amateur" to join the ranks of the two visits.

I was met by staff and officials from the Department who were open, courteous and polite. They answered all our questions. I did not know what to expect when I visited the centres but I saw nothing wrong or out of the ordinary or anything that broke a law yet a pallor of depression hit me on the way home. The three of us who on the way to Athlone on a snowy Monday afternoon last March were talking, debating and full of life, drove home in silence in an emerging realisation as we approached the M50 that what we had witnessed and experienced at the direct provision asylum accommodation centre in Athlone was lifeless. It is an institution devoid of community, history, colour, a homely atmosphere or the usual domestic mess and detritus one would imagine leaving behind in an apartment or house. I felt a lack of oxygen, atmosphere and joy as I left the mobile home site catering for 34 men, 71 women and 177 children.

Almost half of the residents in the Athlone centre have been waiting for their status to be processed for between five and seven years. The longest stay resident is six years and two months. The trick when one visits the accommodation is that one sees nothing wrong because one is there for three hours, not for three years or three months. Anyone who has ever gone on a caravanning holiday will know that the first week is full of excitement, especially if the weather is fine, but soon the lack of space, privacy and money become the dominant tensions. As Senator van Turnhout put it in proposing the motion, all children need to be raised in an atmosphere where care providers offer emotional protection and support. If nature starts the process, nurture should follow through. Are we hearing and bearing witness to the horror stories of the next generation of society, the next chapter of our nation's narrative? It was reported today in The Irish Timesthat an emergency care order was granted for an eight year old asylum seeker in a direct provision centre where she was born. She was later reunited with her mother. In making orders in their case, the judge commented that the child had spent her entire life in direct provision which "seems inappropriate". I do not make direct parallels with fiction but Emma Donoghue's novel The Roomcomes to mind. In it, the child who was being protected by the mother felt normal in an abnormal situation. Habit becomes normal and becomes an invisible corner in Irish society. I will not repeat the litany of shameful examples in Irish history that have been documented but we need to reform this inhumane provision.

According to the Irish Refugee Council report authored by Samantha Arnold entitled, State Sanctioned Child Poverty and Exclusion: "Parents in direct provision are unable to care for or govern the rules and customs of their family and the upbringing of their children due to the restrictions of living in centres. Direct provision is an unnatural family environment that is not conducive to positive development in children". We all know the good memories we have or hope to have growing up in a home: making pancakes in the middle of the night; having pizzas as we watch football with parents and siblings at odd hours, day or night; the sleepover during which, as a parent, one tries to quieten giddy young girls; or meeting the boyfriend of one's daughter for the first time when one pretends one is making a cup of tea 4 a.m. Those memories are impossible in Mosney, Hatch Hall or Athlone.

In a recent judgment on an application for judicial review in the Northern Ireland high court in Belfast, Mr. Justice Stephens outlined in detail his significant discomfort with the system of direct provision in the Republic. This ultimately led to a decision not to return a family of asylum seekers to the Republic. Mr. Justice Stephens clearly stated that the system of direct provision is contrary to the best interests of the child. Asylum seekers are not entitled to work. Adults are paid €19.10 weekly and denied their human rights to work and to protect and provide for their dependants. Three families have been granted leave to challenge the direct provision system of housing for the asylum seeker, as Senator van Turnhout mentioned. One of the families argued that the operation of the direct provision scheme is unconstitutional due to the lack of any originating legislative basis and the absence of independent or parliamentary scrutiny. This evening, I bear witness and give support to a more humane, child-centred and shorter processing system to resolving asylum applications in order that we can cherish all our children, including our asylum seeking children, all the time.