Clare Refugee Feature Oct 09

For just over 7,000 people in this country, the problems of recession, NAMA and politicians expenses do not matter. For them, having some sort of privacy when you share a room with 5 others is central to their lives or dealing with a weekly income of just €19.42. For these people the only right they can exercise is the right to seek asylum in Ireland.
Despite the number of challenges they all face, the difficulty in finding links in the local community can be hampered by lack of language, cultural differences and stereotyping. These issues will not resolve themselves without the involvement of local groups working towards integration and inclusion, delivering support through limited means but with passion and respect.
Orla Ni Eili is the Project Manager for the Clare Immigrant Support Centre (CISC) and has been assisting asylum seekers in Ireland for 17 years and is passionate about giving them back the community and quality of life that the application process can deprive them of.
“I’ve been in a very privileged position to be working with asylum seekers and refugees and immigrants, I sometimes forget it but it is an absolutely privileged position to be able to give a dig out or make a difference”, she says
On September 29 the Clare Lodge in Ennis was closed as an accommodation centre for asylum seekers. The residents were re-housed in the remaining centres around the country.
“The ones that were there a while had made friends had fantastic access to English lessons. They were mixing with locals and being treated like any other ordinary decent people. They had something to be doing, places to hang out and they were making lives and community.
“For some of the people who were sent away it was absolutely devastating because they had gotten used to themselves and each other and built a community for themselves and while it was frail world, they made a shape of it to hold on to. So it was tough very tough on people,” she says.
The decision was taken not to renew the contract with the operators of Clare Lodge something that Orla says was fought vigorously but that it ultimately came down to economic factors and there is now a consolidation going on towards larger facilities.*
The whole practice of direct provision Orla argues was to give adequate welfare to asylum seekers while their cases were dealt with and this should have always been a short term solution
“For any adults that have their meals given to them morning, noon and night, they become institutionalised very quickly. They are not engaged in the community and the daily toil of ordinary things and they can become very isolated and there are a number of reports that show high levels of depression.
“Even the provision of daily meals can cause a high level of guilt for those that had to leave their families behind and they find it hard to accept their situation of relative plenty if they don’t know if their loved ones have enough or anything at all.”
One solution to this and which was recommended in a RAPID report from 2006 is to allow limited access to work for asylum seekers who have been living in direct provision accommodation for six months or more. This has been resisted by the Government because of the fears of creating a so called ‘pull factor’ which would attract more and more asylum seekers and contribute to the problem of people trafficking.
Orla concedes that these are real issues but suggests the biggest problem is with how cases are decided and that if the process was quicker ,the problems associated with direct provision would be redundant.
“If the asylum process was moving at pace that we could rely on then things would be better but it needs to be thorough... it needs to be balanced and fair at the same time. I know some individuals that are here five years without a decision being made.”
Orla is very proud of the number of quality support services in Clare for immigrants but like all things at the moment funding has become much more difficult and the future for CISC and other organisation like it is far from secure. Next year they will have to secure €80’000 from public and private sources
But she smiles and says that this is nothing new as voluntary always walk that tightrope and that job security in the voluntary and community sector has always been difficult and is simply something you get used to.
When asked what she will be looking to achieve next year if funding is secured she grins and says:”a drop of world peace wouldn’t go amis.”