Protect asylum seekers from abuse and neglect

Thursday, December 08, 2011

WE refer to Cormac O’Keeffe’s moving article in your newspaper (Dec 5) and to the findings of a study by psychiatrist Dr Sayed Irtaza Hussein, which points to the high rates of psychiatric illness among asylum seekers, and to the fact that the centre where they live is "like a prison".

Unfortunately, our experience through working with asylum seekers in our legal advocacy service very much reflects the doctor’s findings. In addition, we are regularly told about abuses of power that residents experience at the hands of some of the centre managers.

Most residents are unwilling to make a complaint to the manager at the local centre because they do not want to risk alienating the centres manager. They are unwilling to make their fears known to the section of the Department of Justice that oversees the centres because they are afraid that it will jeopardise their claim for protection in the state. We listen to stories about the mismanagement of the centres and of the system, with a sometimes hopeless sense of watching history repeat itself.

For years, children and adults in residential institutions in Ireland were ignored. No one would take them seriously and so the abuse and neglect that ruined their lives went on and on. We are one of some 20 organisations and international bodies that have called upon the Government to introduce an independent supervisory body that would deal with complaints and ensure that vulnerable residents living in these centres are protected from abuse and neglect. So far, the current coalition, despite promises and undertakings made by both parties while in opposition, has done nothing to ease the plight of a whole new generation that languishes in residential institutions in Ireland.

We hope that Minister Alan Shatter, who has in the past been a strong proponent of children’s rights, would have the courage and foresight to reform our "prison-like" direct provision system, and soon.

Fiona Finn
CEO Nasc
The Irish Immigrant Support Centre
Cork

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, December 08, 2011