Adrift in an Information Age Town

Lucky for the asylum-seekers in Ennis, Co Clare, they are in the State's designated Information Age Town. They can go to the local library and log on to the Internet, using one of the 15 computer terminals there. They speak highly of the "very nice lady" who lets them use the facility.

They can check the news in their home country, send and receive e-mails and generally browse the Web. Otherwise, there is little else to do that does not make demands on the £15 weekly maintenance allowance they receive, plus full bed and board, under the Government's dispersal programme.

They cannot even take out books. There is nobody to act as guarantor for them under the normal library rule of a householder vouching for a lender. Beyond the staff at the Clare Lodge Hostel, they know no one. One Catholic couple goes to Mass. "We do not speak to anybody, only pray," they say.

One man is a member of a Pentecostal church, but he has no place to worship. The only Pentecostal church is in Dublin.

The locals are friendly, they say, when they stop them to ask directions or go into a shop to buy the few supplements their allowance affords them. Of the seven asylum-seekers, all from Romania, who spoke to The Irish Times, most spend their allowance or part of it on cigarettes. At about £3.75 a packet, they can buy a maximum 31/2 packets a week. They do not go to pubs, a normal meeting point for a town like Ennis. A pint of Guinness costs £2.15 in the local, a glass of lemonade £1.20. Drinks are an unnecessary extravagance.

One of them did go to a nightclub at Queen's Hotel recently. It cost him £5, too much to be able to spend any more on a drink.

In any case, the allowance has to stretch to a few necessities. The women have to buy sanitary towels. Some people have bought washing powder to wash smaller items of clothes, which they will not trust to the large communal washing machines in the hostel. One man's trousers were so worn, they ripped in the washing machine.

The allowance may also be used to buy underwear or a pair of socks or to telephone home. For a £5 telephone card, you can have a short conversation. The £50 clothing allowance they received on arrival has long ago been spent. Most of them wear the clothes and shoes they arrived in.

One pregnant woman paid £45 for a pair of dungarees. She is now trying to save to buy a nightdress before she goes into hospital. This has to be balanced with purchases of fruit, cream cheese and chocolate or "something sweet", which she needs during her pregnancy. She also has to buy vitamins.

"I want to cut my hair, but that is £12," another woman says. "It is expensive for me, £12 now."

In the hostel, which once would have catered for backpackers, there are about 60 asylum-seekers. They come from Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, Iran, Iraq and Romania. The couples are lucky. They have each other and they get a room to themselves. The single people are put four to five in a room. Apart from the beds, there is no furniture. If they are lucky, they say, they will have a television, with two channels, up on a ledge.

What do they do all day? "Nothing," they say. The mornings are the worst because the day stretches out ahead of them. "When the day starts we have to think." Breakfast is served between 8.30 a.m. and 10 a.m., lunch at 1 p.m. and dinner at 5.30 p.m.

One of them has come back from Dublin where she was on official business. Her £15 return bus fare was paid by the community welfare officer. Otherwise, there is little opportunity for moving beyond the confines of the town. They have not been allowed to transfer to private rented accommodation. "You have to stay here, that is the only choice," they say.

Every week the couples receive a cheque for £115, with £85 automatically deducted for meals. For single people, £57 is deducted from their £72 allowance.

If deported to Romania, they face a jail term of two to five years for having sought political asylum abroad. They are mystified by the Government wanting to attract 200,000 skilled immigrants to the State.

"We want to use our skills and to work for money. We want to have a legal status here, a private life, a normal life. It seems like a prison here," one says.