Nuala Haughey
The State scheme for housing asylum-seekers in accommodation centres with reduced social welfare payments has been sharply criticised as discriminatory and possibly unconstitut-ional.
A report to be published next week will say the direct provision system may contravene equality laws and is "gravely detrimental" to the human rights of asylum-seekers.
The analysis of direct provision was conducted by the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) organisation, which campaigns for access to justice and human rights.
Under the system of direct provision, asylum-seekers are obliged to live in full-board accommodation centres around the State, including the former Mosney holiday camp in Co Meath.
Because people receive meals and laundry facilities, their weekly social welfare payments are accordingly reduced to €19.10 per adult and €9.60 per child. They also qualify for medical cards, child benefit, lone parent allowance and other exceptional needs payments.
Until this year, community welfare officers had discretion to allow asylum-seekers to move out of direct provision in exceptional circumstances and on to mainstream welfare benefits, including rent supplement for private rental accommodation.
However, the Minister for Justice recently changed the law to effectively oblige all new arrivals to live in direct provision accommodation by cutting off their entitlement to rent supplement for private-sector housing.
Groups working with asylum-seekers in direct provision have complained that it often leads to social exclusion, poverty, hopelessness and institutionalisation of residents. FLAC's report says many of the health, legal, social and cultural needs of asylum-seekers are not being met under the scheme.
The report calls for direct provision to be abandoned immediately, with asylum-seekers dealt with in line with existing social welfare legislation. The organisation has represented asylum-seekers who have tried to move out of direct provision, and is currently planning a High Court challenge to the system.
The report says direct provision was introduced without a statutory basis and was based on Government policy "dictated by expediency and at cross purposes to the clear intention of the legislature in the social welfare code".
It is discriminatory and may be in contravention of the Equal Status Act 2000 which outlaws discrimination in provision of goods and services, it says.
It may also contravene Article 40.1 of the Constitution which provides for human equality. The report examines case law in this area and questions whether the "discriminatory nature of the policy of direct provision can be justified in this respect".
It concludes that the Department of Justice's efforts to avoid the welfare system being a "pull factor" for asylum applicants runs the risk in its current policy and practice of "making the experience of asylum-seeking so unbearable that people are effectively forced to abandon their right to seek asylum".
About 25,000 people have applied for asylum since direct provision was introduced in April 2000. There are currently 4,500 asylum-seekers accommodated in 53 direct provision centres around the State. The report says more than €200 million was spent in 2001 in providing services to asylum-seekers, including claims processing and free legal services.