HUNDREDS OF asylum seekers living at the Mosney accommodation centre in Co Meath are expected to stage a protest today to try to prevent the transfer of 111 residents to different hostels across the country.
The Reception and Integration Agency, an agency of the Department of Justice, issued the transfer orders last week and the first buses are scheduled to arrive at the former Butlins holiday camp this morning to begin taking people to new accommodation. But at a demonstration against the transfers yesterday many of those who are due to be moved said they would refuse to go.
“It is an attack on human rights to tell you to move with just a few days’ notice. I have been in Mosney for four years. But before that they moved me to four different hostels with no consultation. This time they aren’t going to move me,” said Bahroz Wakachi, a Kurdish asylum seeker from Iran, who joined about 200 people in a protest at Mosney’s iron gates.
“If I am moved again I have to start from zero. For me it is very difficult because my partner lives here and she is seven months pregnant. We are not married but it is still breaking up a family,” he said.
Many of the asylum seekers clutched placards pleading for mercy from the Department of Justice. “Don’t move us around, we are tired,” said one banner. “Treat us like humans,” said another placard held aloft by a child.
The Department of Justice has lowered the number of asylum seekers it plans to move from 150 to 111 since last week. But it said yesterday it would not back down and people would have to move to the hostels.
“There is severe financial pressure on the Government and the Department of Justice has a duty to act in the best interests of taxpayers,” said a spokesman for Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.
A value-for-money audit found savings could be made by transferring some of the 800 people living at Mosney to direct provision hostels, mainly in Dublin.
The Government does not allow asylum seekers to work while waiting for their claims to be determined. Instead it accommodates people in direct provision hostels where they get a bed, meals and €19.10 a week to live on. This system costs about €90 million a year and has been targeted for cutbacks by the Government.
“It is obviously disruptive for those moving but there are no families or children involved. These are all single people affected,” said the Minister’s spokesman.
Sirad, a Somali asylum seeker, said the protest was not just about people being moved at short notice, it was also about the inhumane way people are treated in the asylum process.
“I have been living in Mosney for five years. We can’t work and there is very little education. We are isolated here in Mosney from the rest of the public. We live in a cage. It is as if we are criminals,” she said, pointing at the metal gates and railings.
One of the biggest complaints from the 111 people who have been issued with transfer orders is the lack of consultation about their future.
“I’ve been moved from hostel to hostel ever since arriving in Ireland in 2004 and I’ve never had a choice. First I was in a Dublin hostel, then Galway, Mayo, Limerick, Athlone and finally Mosney,” said Amran Abdalla, a Somali who joined the protest.
“I’m not being moved because I have two children but the single people living here help us a lot with the children.”
Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins, who attended the protest, appealed to Mr Ahern to stop the compulsory relocation of asylum seekers, who had built up support systems and friendships.
He also called on the Government to speed up decisions in asylum cases in the interests of “humanitarian concern”.