The story of the Bosnian refugees who came to this country in the 1990s is not one of which we can be proud. They came here legally, by arrangement, under a government programme and with the blessing of the Irish people, appalled by the genocide in Bosnia. The public assumed they would be looked after and their housing needs would be taken care of.
The reality is very different and is set out in a stark and sobering report from Clann Housing Association Ltd. Only a handful of the nearly 300 Bosnian households here have found local authority accommodation or have been able to purchase homes of their own. The overwhelming majority live in private rented accommodation, fearful of what the next rent increase from the landlord will bring, and with little or no security of tenure.
In what is a cruel irony for refugees, some have had to move several times unable to keep up - even with the help of a rent allowance - with the rent increases demanded. And they are so fearful of losing the rent allowance that they are reluctant to take up the low-paid jobs available to them in the economy.
These families have lost their original homes in Bosnia and find there is no secure home for them in Ireland either. As one person surveyed for the Clann report put it: "There is a need for security, a place to stay so that your mind can be free from worries for a while. It is important to be secure, especially for the children." But the future for these children is bleak, if they are uprooted time and again because their parents cannot meet rent demands, and if they grow up in poverty.
What can be done? The report urges the Government to fund non-profit housing associations to make secure accommodation available to refugee families. This approach has a great deal to recommend it. Social housing provided by non-profit organisations is often of a very high standard. In some other countries housing associations are major players in the housing market.
Additional measures are needed. As the option of owning their own houses recedes, even for people on middle incomes, let alone for refugees, the issue of security of tenure in rented accommodation needs to be addressed. A social movement away from ownership and towards renting, is being blocked by our failure to protect the reasonable rights of tenants as well as landlords. Other countries, especially on the Continent, have worked out how to do this. It should not be beyond our imaginative abilities to do the same.
Security of tenure - which implies an end to a landlord's ability to put up rents on a whim - would mean everything to the Bosnian refugees and to the many other people whose lives are dominated by this issue. The provision of sufficient local authority housing is also a priority. The Government has pledged itself to build 35,000 local authority homes in seven years and it is vital that this is pursued with determination.
This report deserves to be considered in detail by the relevant Government departments and agencies. What has happened to the Bosnian refugees reflects no credit on us. We can do better.