THE DEPARTMENT of Justice has said it will not force asylum seekers on to buses to transfer them from Mosney to hostels across the State.
However, it is insisting that the 111 asylum seekers who were given transfer orders last week will not be able to continue living at the former holiday camp.
A spokesman for Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said yesterday the department renegotiated its contract with Mosney to accommodate 650 asylum seekers, down from the previous contractual figure of 800 people. He said this would create annual savings of €1.8 million and that the contract would not be changed.
The department was responding to another day of protests by asylum seekers, who have accused the Government of ignoring their rights by giving them only a few days’ notice to move to new hostels.
The asylum seekers want to stay in Mosney because they don’t have to share bedrooms at the centre and have built friendship and support networks in the neighbourhood.
Some have been living at the centre for several years while waiting for their cases to be decided and for legal appeals to conclude.
A bus arrived at Mosney yesterday at about 10am to bring a first group of 40 asylum seekers to Hatch Hall, a hostel for asylum seekers in Dublin. Another bus will arrive today and a further one tomorrow.
However, the asylum seekers refused to get on the bus and are continuing to resist the transfers.
“I’ve been living here in Mosney for three years. My child died here when he was six weeks old and he is buried in Drogheda. I don’t want to move away from here to go to Dublin. I want to be able to visit his grave as often as I do now,” said Mary, an asylum seeker from Ghana.
No one from the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA), which manages the asylum process for the Government, was at Mosney yesterday to direct the transfer operation. However, Brian Burn, manager of the Hatch Hall hostel, where many of the asylum seekers are due to be rehoused, said two asylum seekers had already come to the hostel by themselves. “We’ve never had any difficulty. There is usually a maximum of three people to a room, and only occasionally four people share.”
Fine Gael justice spokesman Alan Shatter accused Mr Ahern of “extraordinary incompetence, a lack of insight and sensitivity” in his handling of the situation.
“It seems in the context of asylum seekers they are forgetting the common humanity of the people concerned. It’s more like treating people like a herd of cattle,” said Mr Shatter, who criticised the lack of consultation with residents and the lengthy delays in the asylum system.
Sue Conlon, chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council, also criticised the lack of consultation between the RIA and the asylum seekers due to be moved.
She said the council would help to mediate between the asylum seekers and the RIA.
Management at Mosney s would make no comment. The centre will not be paid for housing any of the 111 asylum seekers who are to be transferred. It remains unclear whether Mosney will move to evict them.
Several community groups and representatives attended the protest yesterday.
“I’m here because a number of our parishioners are facing being moved at short notice. It doesn’t seem to be a very just or fair way to deal with people,” said Peter Rutherford, reverend at St Mary’s church in Julianstown.