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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
1 0 April 2016
B
ullying of a child by staff, unauthor-
ised searches of bags and
belongings, infestations of vermin,
and rooms with no heating and
broken windows … just another day
in the life of Ireland’s direct provision system.
Copies of letters of complaint by asylum-
seekers, all of which were upheld after
investigation, paint a grim portrait of life inside
the network of former B&Bs, hotels, accommo-
dation centres and caravan parks that almost
5,000 people are now forced to call home.
The letters obtained by Village under the
Freedom of Information Act are being made
public for the first time.
However, they represent just a small fraction
of the issues within the direct provision system,
with asylum-seekers increasingly less likely to
engage in a formal complaint mechanism that
offered them very little protection or
anonymity.
At a centre in Dublin, a mother wrote of how
her six-year-old son had been bullied by a
member of staff at her accommodation centre.
“My son has a speech problem”, she said,
“and he finds it hard to pronounce words … this
has been a worry for me and he gets mocked by
his peers but I always assure him that nothing
is wrong with him”.
The woman described how one evening she
had asked her son to get a laundry tablet from
a member of staff.
“I was walking behind my son and heard the
security man … mocking … with the way he
speak. This is so humiliating for [a] six-year-old
boy and I was so upset and disappointed. I
asked why on earth he was doing that to my son
and all he could say was ‘I was joking with him’.
I noticed then whenever I send [my son to] get
things from the office, he is always reluctant as
that must have been happening for a while.
I find it so offensive for an adult such as
[redacted] to bully my six-year-old son because
he has a speech problem. It is hard for me to
even imagine that would ever happen in this
world from a grown man to a little boy”.
In a handwritten note on her letter, the inci-
dent was described as a “misunderstanding”
but the resident’s complaint was upheld.
At another centre, a mother wrote to complain
of how her child had been physically assaulted
by a resident after a row between two kids.
“The mother draw [sic] my son upstairs with
his ear and his ear was so red and my son was
greatly terrified and was so scared to go outside
afterwards”, she wrote.
“Every child [is] supposed to feel safe in his
or her environment, this is the only hostel that
some women think they have the right to beat
or threaten other people’s children; they have
done it to my kids about twice or three times
and I have seen them do it to other kids”.
In a centre in the Mid-West, a group of resi-
dents wrote about repeated gross invasions of
their privacy.
“The manager get in any room and search our
private bags and take our stuff”, they wrote.
They explained how CCTV was installed to
watch the windows of their room, which were
locked so that they would not open more than
a centimetre.
The residents also described how they were
made to sign in daily and, if they did not, a letter
was sent to social welfare officers seeking cuts
to the tiny weekly payment of €19 that they
receive.
In response, the Reception and Integration
Agency said rooms were checked to ensure
there was nothing causing a safety or fire
hazard.
They said under contract, the accommodation
providers were obliged to return a weekly regis-
ter saying if residents were still there and that
unauthorised people were not allowed in rooms.
At the same centre, a disabled asylum-seeker
had pleaded to be allowed to share a room with
his Afghan friends because he needed help in
every “aspect of life”.
“They treat us the way like we are in prison”,
he wrote: “They don’t care about your health,
your condition, [and] depression and will make
your head burst out and become crazy. Our con-
dition is even worse than prisoners because
they have some respect inside the jail but we
don’t have that at all”.
The complaint was investigated and it was
discovered that there were fourteen vacancies
at the centre and the request to stay together
could easily have been facilitated.
Another complaint at that centre was also
upheld, about freezing conditions in one of its
rooms.
The asylum-seeker wrote: “I am sharing a
room with two other gentlemen. The room is
very small, and I am studying almost full time,
and I don’t even have room to put my books in
place. There is no heating in the room and the
window is broken. It is very cold these nights”.
In the West of Ireland, the amount of food
being provided had almost caused a “serious
fight” between residents and kitchen staff.
The letter of complaint explained how resi-
dents were asking about some food that was
being cooked, only to be told it would not be
served until the following day.
“The shortage of food in the dining [area] is
a recurring event”, a letter said, saying resi-
dents were left “starving” and parents left to
manage without sufficient food for their
children.
An investigator’s report said: “I am fully sat-
isfied that the residents had a complaint and
were justified in sending it on to the Reception
Refugee Reality
FOI complaints show lunatics
taking over the asylum-seekers
by Ken Foxe
The letters were sent
under a system introduced
in 2011 where asylum-
seekers could make
complaints about their
centres. There were 20
in 2011 – two of which
were upheld – but the
volume has fallen since as
confidence has collapsed
NEWS
April 2016 1 1
and Integration Agency”.
A year later, the problems did not appear to
have been resolved and another letter was
received about the quality of food.
Residents said that some of what they were
served was “rotten” and “smelling”.
“This is not the first time we are experiencing
this problem. The residents have been com-
plaining of taking their children or themselves
to the hospital for food poisoning, and no
change has been done. We have been served
rice that has been rotting for days”, it said.
At one centre in the North of the country, a
woman wrote about how she had begun suffer-
ing from chest pains but management would
not move her from her room on the upper floor
of the complex.
At one stage, she fell in a washroom because
she was so weak.
She also wrote of the unsanitary conditions
at the centre, and how she was fearful her chil-
dren would become ill from filthy toilet and
washing facilities.
“The area where I have to share a common
bathroom with other residents is often unclean
with water and urine on the floor and not to
mention the … toilets that are often dirty and
not cleaned up as well as unflushable after
use”, she wrote.
“The bathrooms are dirty and unsafe to use
especially when I need to bath the kids. I have
complained to management about this but
again nothing has been done”.
In a direct appeal, she pleaded for the neglect
of her family to end:
“This treatment is unbelievable to us seeing
we came to seek refuge in this country that is
believed to be a safe haven. I am scared for my
health and my life”.
In a centre in Dublin, a resident told how over
four nights in a single week there was constant
noise from the room above.
A response said: “[The manager] has
informed me that she has spoken to the person
in this room regarding this on more than one
occasion. The manager has also confirmed that
this lady has been asked to relocate to another
room but will not do so. I have asked the man-
ager to monitor this and keep me informed of
the situation”.
At another centre near Dublin, residents had
complained en masse about the quality of food
and hygiene at their centre.
A response to them said that the environmen-
tal health officer had visited and “certified that
the centre is clear of live pest activity”. A “deep
clean” of the accommodation centre also had
to be undertaken.
The letters were all sent under a system intro-
duced by the Department of Justice in 2011
where asylum-seekers could make formal writ-
ten complaints about the centres they lived in.
There were 20 complaints that year – two of
which were upheld – but the volume of com-
plaints has fallen in every year since.
By 2012, there were 13 complaints with 8
upheld and the following year, there were just
six complaints, four of which were upheld.
In 2014, the number of complaints fell to four
as asylum-seekers rapidly lost faith in the
system, according to rights groups.
Jennifer DeWan of NASC Ireland said the com-
plaints process was now in limbo as a final
formal decision on having the Ombudsman
investigate problems still needs to be clarified:
“We have had a lot of the concerns in the past
around the complaints process, particularly
people fearing repercussions [from speaking
up]. But a lot of the people coming to us, we
would try and ask them to make complaints –
except it just didn’t feel worthwhile for them.
Even when complaints were made and
upheld, there was no follow-up. There are no
clear standards for the centres and inspections
that currently happen and they are more about
safety and much less about the fact that these
are centres that house families.
Even in cases where the Ombudsman has got
involved and upheld complaints last year, there’s
not a huge amount of resolution in those cases.
The structures are still very much the same;
there’s no real independent oversight until the
Ombudsman gets involved. And there’s no real
bite to any ruling that is made in terms of what
happens afterwards.
The Reception and Integration Agency have
also said that the first stage of the complaints
system has to be at a local centre level yet they
don’t even keep an official log of that. You also
need independent oversight afterwards in case
the internal process does not work out.
The number of complaints has been falling
yet we are still hearing about all the same
issues. People just don’t see the benefit of com-
plaining – because even when they do, nothing
changes. The mechanisms need to be safe for
asylum seekers to use and there must be a posi-
tive result when they use them".
In a statement, the Reception and Integration
Agency (RIA) said:
"[We] have no comment to make other than
to say that all complaints are investigated and,
where issues raised need to be addressed, they
are addressed. This is a standard practice for
complaints mechanisms.
Furthermore, each centre is subject to three
separate quality-control unannounced inspec-
tions each year. Two of these are carried out by
RIA staff and one by a specialised firm con-
tracted by RIA for that purpose... these are in
addition to inspections from the local Environ-
mental Health Officer, which also can occur at
any time".
They were made to sign
in daily and, if they did
not, a letter was sent to
social welfare officers
seeking cuts to the tiny
weekly payment of €19
that they receive
Asylum-seeker accommodation 2016
Asylum-seekers 2016
