It’s time to bring our policy on refugees into the mainstream. For more than twenty years Ireland has relied on the system known as ‘direct provision’ to accommodate refugees seeking asylum here. This puts asylum seekers into the shadows of life in this country. It has been widely criticised nationally and internationally. The 2020 Programme for Government committed to ending direct provision. Putting an end to direct provision must mean integrating asylum seekers who are allowed to stay in Ireland into the mainstream of Irish life.
However, our housing, health, education, transport and planning policies still do not count these people in our future planning projections even though they will make their permanent homes in Ireland. By choosing not to include a sizeable number of people in these policies we are storing up problems for the future.
The 2021 White Paper on ending direct provision lists a comprehensive set of measures for streamlining our international protection system, integrating those whose applications are accepted and obliging those whose applications are refused to leave Ireland. The vast majority of its recommendations are still valid and are being implemented. Understandably, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered an influx of over 60,000 refugees to Ireland in less than a year and, at the same time, there has been a surge in the number of asylum seekers. These factors have made it increasingly difficult to find accommodation for those with leave to remain and for people seeking asylum.
Together with retired diplomat and former ambassador to the United Nations David Donohgue and housing policy expert and lecturer at Technological University Dublin, Lorcan Sirr, I am part of an external advisory group reporting to Minister Roderic O’Gorman on implementing the White Paper. We have just delivered a short report recommending a series of urgent actions designed to help the State meet its international and EU obligations on international protection. In our view neither the private sector nor NGOs can provide the volume of accommodation needed for new arrivals.
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We are recommending that the State use emergency powers and legislation to build the six reception and integration centres proposed in the White Paper on State-owned land (of which 2,000 hectares is zoned for residential use), building two by the end of May 2023 and four more by the end of 2023. These should be built to accommodate 3,000-4,500 people and, in our view, could be delivered relatively quickly using prefab, modular or rapid construction with standard building techniques, as has been done in the Balseskin Reception Centre.
It is important to keep the international protection system moving and to avoid the kind of bottlenecks that have built up in the past. More than 4,600 applicants with leave to remain in Ireland are still living in direct provision because of the shortage of suitable accommodation. This puts further pressure on finding alternative accommodation for new arrivals. We are recommending that the Department of Housing develop a bespoke plan with the local authorities, which will require additional State funding, to provide accommodation and services across all counties for these successful applicants.
Another of our recommendations is the establishment by the end 2024 of a state agency to accommodate and integrate future asylum seekers. The work currently being done by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth can form the nucleus of the future agency, which we recommend should be the responsibility of the Department of Housing in the longer term.
The current lack of suitable housing is both a general societal problem and at the core of many issues facing both asylum seekers and those with leave to remain. Their needs should be integrated into the targets of current housing policy, especially Housing for All. War, climate change and persecution will continue to drive people to seek asylum here and we need to plan for surge capacity that doesn’t involve people sleeping in tents or on floors.
We also need to have a national discussion about how to integrate those with permission to remain into Irish society in a more effective and humane way. Most Irish people have great empathy and goodwill towards people fleeing conflict and persecution, as we have shown in opening our hearts and homes to Ukrainian refugees. But people also have concerns, particularly about the impact of new arrivals on local services and our capacity to absorb new arrivals. We are recommending permanent contact with local communities to explain how services such as health and education will be adjusted to accommodate more users without causing negative effects for the local population and to highlight the potentially positive impact of integrating new people in the community. In particular, we recommend outreach to local community groups, as well as public and local representatives, well in advance of decisions being taken to locate reception and integration centres in any locality.
Ireland will continue to be a destination of hope for some people fleeing persecution. We have a robust system for deciding which applications for protection are accepted. But we now need to scale up the rest of the system to deal effectively with the long-term challenges of accommodating new arrivals whose applications for protection are accepted. If we welcome them, we can help them to contribute their skills and talents to our future development, but to do this we must include them in our plans for the future.
Catherine Day is a former secretary general of the European Commission and a trustee of The Irish Times