Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Over the last few weeks there have been a lot of disturbances on our streets around who should be here and who should not be here. There is very disturbing news coming from the Department that we may not have anywhere to house asylum seekers. People are coming here for protection and they have been advised not to travel to Ireland because we do not have the room for them.

There was an analysis from KOD Lyons about our European requirements and the implications that could have if we do not fulfil those. This was about the first case that the European Court of Human Rights recently granted two interim measures requiring Belgian authorities to comply with national court orders to provide accommodation for homeless seekers of international protection. This was a case called Camara v Belgium, if anyone wishes to look it up.

I will briefly outline what the case was about. Mr. Abdoulaye Camara was a seeker of international protection from Guinea who applied to Belgian authorities for international protection on 15 July 2022. Instead of being assigned a place or a reception facility, he was forced to live on the street, which is something we may be looking at here in Ireland. His legal team initiated proceedings through the labour court in Brussels saying that the neglect of the Belgian authorities had caused irreversible damage to his human dignity. The labour court ordered the subsidiary tasked with looking after international protection applicants to provide him with suitable accommodation and with material assistance to meet his basic needs in accordance with national law. However, this was not enforced so his legal team ended up taking the matter to the European Court of Human Rights under a number of headings, including under Article 3 - not providing him with accommodation and appropriate reception facilities, and Article 6 - not giving him a fair hearing.There are number of other areas that were brought before it. They reserved judgment on the admissibility of merits of the substantive application, but they said that Mr. Camara did in fact face a real risk of irreversible harm. The European court decided to indicate an interim measure and order the Belgian state to comply with the order of the labour court to provide accommodation and material assistance with Mr. Camara’s basic needs. This was only just before Christmas.

So what does this mean for Ireland? Particularly, those in Government parties here, and I do not know if this is to come from the House or what, but this ruling from European court shows that, in no uncertain terms, any attempt by the State to limit the right of international protection applicants to access basic accommodation and material assistance will possibly result in a forcible action before the European courts, even in circumstances where a domestic court is unable or unwilling to act. There is a very real and realistic potential that what our Government has said about not being able to provide international applicants with housing or material assistance will be in breach of the European courts. We may find ourselves in the European courts where an international applicant has been denied the services and there will be a judgment telling us that we have to do better. That is important to put on the record, considering what has been coming out of the Department over the past few days.