Workers Solidarity Movement

MASI - the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland - held its first ever conference Saturday to mark FIVE years of struggle to end Direct Provision.

Hundreds of people attended the conference in Liberty Hall whose theme was 'Towards a More Humane Asylum Process'. People in the asylum system travelled from across Ireland to discuss the past and present of the asylum and deportation machine and to point the way forward to the end of Direct Provision and a more humane asylum system.

People currently in Direct Provision talk about the dehumanising conditions and the large profits being made out of their suffering by the companies that own the direct provision centres. People don’t understand why we ended up in Direct Provision, we hope to bring our stories out of the shadows of Irish society. [audio]

The Direct Provision institutions were introduced as a supposedly temporary measure in 2000.  17 years later they are still with us and some have spent over a decade trapped in the institutional isolation and poverty they create.  Adult residents receive €21.60 a week and some like Mosney are in isolated locations with no transport connections.  Visitors are controlled and there are little or no cooking facilities which means the children who have grown up there have seldom tasted their parents cooking and have been unable to have friends sleep over.

The demand for abortion rights is a shallow one if all that it means is a right to a safe and legal abortion. The demand for abortion rights must be brought into the greater battle for full reproductive freedom.

Reproductive freedom means that if someone is pregnant and does not wish to be they are supported, financially and emotionally in that decision. Likewise, if someone wishes to have a child they should not be constrained by, for example, financial issues.

Last week, three children under the age of six slept rough in Dublin city centre while their parents stayed awake to watch over them. As of August 2015, this family is but one of 620 families in Ireland, including more than 1,300 children, who are homeless. The root of the current crisis of housing is the current crisis of capitalism. 

Last week, it was revealed that four Irish NGOs – the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Nasc Irish Immigrant Support Centre, Focus Ireland and Sonas Housing – had submitted a report to the Minister for Justice about the accommodation of suspected sex trafficking victims in direct provision centres. While the report raises a number of very valid concerns, it’s unsurprising that one particular line has received the most attention – the allegation that “traffickers have used the asylum system for residency and accommodation while simultaneously trafficking victims”. The media focus on this uncorroborated claim is unfortunate (albeit totally predictable) at a time when asylum seekers’ complaints about their housing are finally starting to get the headlines they should have had for years.

Leticia Ortega (WSM) conducts a joint interview with a woman seeking asylum and Luke Budha of Anti-Deportation Ireland (ADI) and the Anti Racism Network (ARN).