Calls for a review of the direct provision system
A Co. Laois parish priest has warned that the State is repeating the mistakes of the past, with the restricted conditions that families seeking asylum are forced to live in while waiting for a decision on their status.
Msgr John Byrne, parish priest of Portlaoise, used his homily at Mass last Sunday to highlight the physical, social and psychological impact on children who are growing up in the accommodation system for asylum seekers.
Speaking in radio interviews in advance of Mass, Msgr Byrne described the local direct provision centre in the Montague Hotel in Emo as an “open prison”.
“I would have particular sympathy for the plight of the children, some of whom were born while their mother was resident there and they have known no other life,” he said.
Shame
“We look back on our past in shame both as a Church and as a society, and wonder how could we have treated people like that? How could we have treated mothers and babies in that manner? And yet this is very akin to that. These children are living very stunted lives,” Msgr Byrne said.
“Their mothers never prepare a meal for them – they know nothing about that aspect of family life.
“They live in one room with their parents or their single parent. They go to school, they come home and they don’t have the wherewithal, or their parents don’t have the means, to allow them to be involved in extra school activities, so they are living very confined lives.
“Their idea of family life is a very limited one and I just wonder what effect this is having on these beautiful children,” he said.
Msgr Byrne has called for a review of the direct provision system, saying that there must be another way to allow asylum seekers to live fuller family lives on the same resources.