State centre for asylum seekers 'inappropriate' for long stays

AN INDEPENDENT report has found that a State-run centre housing over 230 asylum seekers in southeast Co Clare represents “an inhumane environment” for families required to remain there long-term.

The Knockalisheen centre on the Clare-Limerick border accommodates 233 asylum seekers under the system known as “direct provision”.

The authors of a new report say “there can be no doubt that the policy of accommodating families for long periods at Knockalisheen is inappropriate”.

The report, Needs of Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Co Clare, found that some residents had been living at the centre for five years.

The report was drawn up by the University of Limerick’s centre for peace and development studies.

“Any kind of institutional accommodation in which families are unable to maintain selfsufficient households is in the long-term harmful.

“The facilities at Knockalisheen are appropriate only for short-term accommodation. Compelling people to live with their children in such a facility for years on end undermines their long-term capacity to manage their own lives and to become active participants in wider society.”

In 2007, residents at Knockalisheen protested at the gates of the centre over the quality of food at the centre.

A focus group of residents at the centre told the authors of the report that the two people responsible for organising the demonstration were later transferred from Knockalisheen to another centre.

Parents at the centre also told the authors that they must purchase school workbooks for their children from the €19 weekly allowance adults each receive and they believe this to be an unfair imposition.

The authors also found that the residents lived “in very cramped surroundings”.

At the launch of the report and the Integrated Strategy for the Co-ordination of Services to Immigrant Communities in Co Clare 2009-12 in Ennis, a member of the audience questioned Minister of State for Integration Conor Lenihan over the length of stays in Knockalisheen.

Mr Lenihan said the main cause of the delay in the asylum process was “the whole collection of lawyers and barristers in this country who are entertaining and promoting the concept of judicial review for people who fail in the asylum process”.

He said many judicial cases were being taken with a view to prolonging “the stay of the person who clearly and demonstrably has not achieved refugee status”.

Responding to matters raised by the report over conditions at Knockalisheen, the Reception and Integration Agency said it carried out to the best of its ability the Government mandate in relation to direct provision and dispersal.

The agency is attached to the Department of Justice, and is responsible for co-ordinating the provision of services to both asylum seekers and refugees,

It said the direct provision system was the only one that could fulfil Ireland’s humanitarian and international obligations without creating “an economic pull factor for economic migrants using the asylum system to enter the State”.

It said the claim that Knockalisheen did not represent suitable long-term accommodation was “an arguable point”.

On the issue of food, it said the centre’s residents “have as good a standard of nutrition as have the community in general”.