Mags Gargan
NGOs supporting refugees and asylum seekers have strongly rejected Government claims that “significant progress” has been made in implementing recommendations for reform of the direct provision system.
Last week the Department of Justice and Equality issued a progress update on the Report of the Working Group on Improvements to the Protection Process, which claimed that “91 of the group’s recommendations have been implemented, a further 49 have been partially implemented or are in progress, and the balance remain under consideration”.
However, Caroline Reid of the Irish Refugee Council told The Irish Catholic that this is not the experience of the people on the ground. “They are putting a tick beside what has been implemented but there is little clarity on how it has been implemented. For people actually caught up in the system it is still very slow moving, there have been few if any changes to the physical living environment and the most obvious recommendation that has been put into effect is the increase in child allowance but yet no increase for adults, which would have been quite simple to bring into effect,” she said.
Urgency
Eugene Quinn of Jesuit Refugee Service, which served on the working group, said there is “an urgency to fully implement recommendations leading to real and qualitative changes in living conditions and supports, enabling the 4,300 people currently residing in direct provision to live with greater dignity”.
He said Ireland remains the only country in the EU, other than Lithuania, that does not allow asylum applicants access to the labour market at any stage during the process and a recommendation to include a right to work for asylum seekers after nine months has been rejected.
Furthermore, a recommendation to increase the adult weekly direct provision allowance of €19.10 for the first time in 15 years, in line with welfare inflation in that period, was ignored.
