Refugees have to stand and wait as the crisis worsens

Suliman was in reasonably good spirits yesterday. The 30-year-old Sudanese man, who has "left everything" to find safety in Ireland, had finally managed to see a community welfare officer. After four days of fruitless queueing he actually got into the Refugee Application Centre in Dublin's Lower Mount Street and got an appointment with a doctor.

Things had not gone so well on Thursday when, for the fourth day running, welfare officers were unavailable.

"They treated us shabbily," he said of his experience on Tuesday. "I was here for six hours and then they [welfare officers] left, just went out the back, without telling us anything. Just told us to come back tomorrow. Just treated us like we were nobody."

Elizabeth (33), from Nigeria, was more resigned than angry. Standing at the back of the queue on Thursday, her three-month-old daughter Stephanie asleep in her arms, she just shrugged that she was "used to it".

It's been a bad week for the Refugee Application Centre. As queues grew out of control, two groups of workers withdrew their services, the gardai were called on several occasions and a community welfare officer was allegedly assaulted by a Georgian national frustrated that he couldn't get accommodation. Everyone was reaching the end of their tether.

While the queueing asylum-seekers could only bear it, on Tuesday the 15 community welfare officers had had enough. Citing concerns about their safety because of the numbers arriving daily, they withdrew over-the-counter services.

While they operated a free phone line their unions, SIPTU and IMPACT, negotiated with the EHB. An agreement was reached that 10 new welfare officers would be recruited and that the Office of Public Works would source additional building space for the centre's work.

Normal services would resume on Wednesday, we were told.

At 8.40 on Wednesday morning it was the porters' turn to kick up. Their union, SIPTU, complained they were not consulted about their staffing levels. They withdrew their services, only first-time asylum applicants were seen and those with welfare queries were turned away.

Another round of emergency negotiations with EHB management resulted in a promise of three new porters and an increase in "outreach clinics", in which a porter and welfare officer travel to an area where asylum-seekers are living, effectively bringing the centre to them rather than have them visit the centre.

Normal services would resume on Thursday, we were told.

However, although normal services were provided in the morning, a statement from the EHB at Thursday lunchtime said that "due to the large number of asylum-seekers who arrived at the unit, staff subsequently had to prioritise first-time applicants for services". (It was that morning that the alleged assault on a welfare officer took place.)

Yesterday services did finally return to "normal", i.e. the queue outside began forming late on Thursday night, people faced waits of up to six hours and some who arrived late (any time after noon) were probably not seen.

Although some 13 new staff are due to start at the centre over the next few weeks all agree that without additional space the queues will continue.

"It's all well and good appointing new welfare officers," says Ramon O'Reilly, the SIPTU official representing porters, "but where are they going to put them? There isn't enough space as it is."

Sean McHugh, assistant general secretary of IMPACT, also emphasises the space issue, saying the agreement his members came to with the EHB relies on additional building space.

"It won't come together until that happens," he says.

But how have we arrived at a situation where policy on accommodating the needs of asylum-seekers is driven by crisis?

Jim Curran, manager of services at the centre, says staff are dealing with up to 1,000 people a week, in a centre opened in October 1998 to cope with 500 a week. He explains that while asylum-seekers living in private rented accommodation are dealt with by welfare officers in their local community, those living in emergency accommodation are dealt with in Lower Mount Street.

BECAUSE of the housing crisis, more are staying for longer periods in emergency accommodation (currently 2,600). Hence the queues to see the centre's welfare officers.

The sharp rise in the number of people seeking asylum over the past three months could not have been anticipated, says Mr Curran.

This may be the case, says Michael Lindenbauer, liaison officer at the UNHCR in Dublin, but it is not enough to assume the rate of applications will continue at the same level. "You have to have a contingency plan for a sudden increase," he says.

Planning, says Mr McHugh, has been erratic at best, almost non-existent at worst as regards operating a refugee centre that can cope. He points out that the refugee centre has moved to larger premises three times since January 1997. Each move was precipitated by protests by staff over crisis conditions.

"The situation with numbers was not kept under review," he says, "and each time it took a crisis for alternative accommodation to be found." He welcomes a commitment in the current agreement "to keep a review on the situation".

As he himself says, however, the EHB may keep a review on the situation but, unless the decision is made at Government level to increase funding to the board specifically on the asylum issue, "there's not a lot the EHB can do about it".

He and Mr O'Reilly also welcome moves to extend the outreach service and to begin housing asylum-seekers outside Dublin. However, Mr Lindenbauer is concerned that such moves will be slow in coming. "I think there is an enormous will to do it right. The problem is that this phenomenon is new. Dealing with asylum-seekers is not an easy matter and we have to move fast.

"In dispersing asylum-seekers we are looking at structures that are not equipped. Local social welfare officers will have to learn very fast how to deal with asylum applicants; interpreters will have to be put in place; welfare and hospital treatment will have to be devised for the needs of asylum-seekers as normal humans beings in a new situation." These are things that cannot be done overnight, he says, and yet they are needed urgently.

"We really need to get everyone around the table, to perhaps establish a task force to tackle the asylum issue urgently."

He feels the current inter-departmental committee on asylum matters may be too bureaucratic.

Most immediately, the centre needs more space. A spokeswoman for the OPW yesterday described the availability of the kind of space the EHB so urgently requires as "very tight". Until it is found, tempers may yet fray further, while the queue certainly grows longer.

At least this week it didn't rain.