ALL AYSLUM SEEKERS sleeping in tents at Knockalisheen are to be moved to alternative accommodation.
With Ireland enduring sub-zero weather conditions, the plight of an approximate 100 male asylum seekers sleeping in tents outside the Knockalisheen Direct Provision Centre has been brought into focus.
Since September, thirteen army tents have been used to house up to 104 people seeking asylum in Ireland. An estimated 270 persons are based within the Direct Provision Centre which is the longest full-time centre for refugees in the country.
Clare Immigrant Support Centre co-ordinator Orla Ní hÉilí has confirmed to The Clare Echo that all of the refugees that had been in tents will be moved by tomorrow (Monday) at the latest. The men in tents had been sleeping with all their clothes on during the freezing weather.
Movement has occurred with some of the men gone to Waterford, Dublin, Limerick and other parts of Co Clare, others were let into the recreation room of the Direct Provision Centre where one man slept with his mattress on top of a pool table.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Orla flagged that there is a feeling of “trepidation” from the men about moving from Meelick as they had started courses which are vital to their application to be granted asylum and for some are the only consistent aspect of their daily lives. “Some of them had slept on floors of City West and the Airport before, this is upending them again, it’s getting them in out of the cold but some felt quite hopeless and demoralised during the week, hopefully they can build themselves up again”.
“It hasn’t been a good time, this could have been predicted, anybody going into tents was an emergency measure, we have an awful habit in Ireland that emergency measures become the status quo very easily, we know that for years,” she said. “We welcome and lobbied hard for the men to be housed indoors but for some of the places they’ve gone is to emergency temporary places and there needs to be plans in the short-term and medium-term as to where they can be housed”.
Orla maintained there was a “glaring need for a refugee agency that is looking at all aspects of the asylum process and refugee world making sure human rights are being upheld at every step of the process from how their cases are conducted to their accommodation, working throughout all Govt departments on finding good housing solutions”.
Clare TD, Cathal Crowe (FF) who flagged the issue of tented accommodation at a meeting of the Clare Joint Policing Committee (JPC) this month outlined that Met Éireann had said the border between Clare and Limerick was “the coldest part of Ireland” on Saturday night.
Deputy Crowe commented, “I think it is inhumane in this cold snap to have people living in tents, I don’t think it is right at any time of the year to have people sleeping in tents be they homeless, be they refugees or whoever, I just think it is wrong”.
President Michael D. Higgins admitted he was “very sad” with the situation in Co Clare. “It is something that should concern all us,” he said. “This issue in Co Clare, it shouldn’t happen anywhere. I know people will try their best but we really have to solve it and that’s it, it’s a responsibility for all of us,” the Ballycar man added.
A spokesperson for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth said around 20 people who have been staying in tented accommodation in Knockalisheen were moved to alternative accommodation on Friday. The tented camp in Knockalisheen is the only one still accommodating international protection applicants.
