AT LEAST 150 asylum-seekers living at Mosney accommodation centre in Co Meath have been told by the Department of Justice to move to different hostels across the country.
The Mosney residents were told about the transfers this week, just days before they are due to be implemented next Tuesday.
Some of the residents have lived at the former holiday camp near Laytown for years. Describing the transfers yesterday as “inhumane”, they said they would go on hunger strike on Monday and stage a peaceful protest on Tuesday to resist the transfers to other direct-provision hostels.
One asylum-seeker from Yemen living in Mosney told The Irish Timesthis was the fourth time he was being moved in five years.
“First they put me in a hostel in Killarney, then they moved me to Tralee and later Mosney. And now I’m being sent to a centre in Dublin.
“I’ve already started three different lives in Ireland – making new friends, getting involved in education and activities – and then I’m moved. It’s very difficult to be moved around like this. You lose everything you have every time.”
The department said the transfers were being implemented as part of a value-for-money review of direct provision – the system for accommodating and feeding asylum-seekers.
“As part of this ongoing review the capacity of the Mosney accommodation centre is being reduced from 800 persons to 650 persons,” it said.
The Government does not allow asylum-seekers to work while waiting for claims to be determined and the direct-provision system costs some €90 million a year. The average cost for accommodation of asylum seekers in direct provision is €213.78 to each person a week.
The Department of Justice does not publish the amount of money it pays each contractor operating the 52 direct-provision centres. However, Mosney Irish Holidays Ltd, the company which runs the centre, made revenues worth €9.2 million from accommodating asylum seekers in 2008 – the last year for which it has filed accounts.
Free Legal Advice Centres (Flac) criticised the Government last night for giving people who had lived in Mosney for years just days to move from their homes.
“Apart from the personal upset, this mass transfer suggests that consideration has not been given to the circumstances of each individual,” said its director Noeline Blackwell.
The criticism came as the Government published a new version of the Immigration Residence and Protection Bill 2010. It contains measures designed to make it easier to deport asylum-seekers who are not granted leave to remain and clarify existing laws on immigration.