A number of asylum-seeking families from the new EU states are facing homelessness, having been told they cannot use State-run accommodation because their states are now in the EU.
Despite assurances from the Departments of Justice and Social and Family Affairs that the families would not face homelessness, a number have found they are not to receive the rent allowance payments which would help them secure other accommodation.
Last month the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA), which runs "direct provision" centres for asylum-seekers, wrote to an estimated 300 families - some 1,000 individuals - from the accession states telling them they would no longer be entitled to their current accommodation.
"Therefore you must vacate your current accommodation as soon as possible, at the very latest by May 1st, and arrange your own accommodation."
They were advised to contact their local community welfare officers and apply for rent allowance.
Most were granted the benefit, though about 40 were not.
This would appear to be because they do not satisfy the "habitual residence" rule stipulating that new applicants for benefits must have been resident in Ireland or Britain for at least two years.
Among the affected families is that of Mr Michael Oyeniyi and Ms Wanda Oyeniyi and their two children, Michael (13 months) and daughter Biola (16), from Poland. They have been in Ireland for 15 months. They came as Mr Oyeniyi is originally from Nigeria, and the family suffered "gross racism".
They applied for asylum here, and were accommodated first in a mobile home park in Athlone and then in Mosney under the "direct provision" programme. Under this asylum-seekers get bed and board and €19 each per week.
When baby Michael was delivered 10 weeks premature and with heart and lung problems, the family was moved to an apartment block in Dublin to be nearer Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children.
As his mother spoke yesterday, her son was sleeping in a cot, a tank humming beside him as it fed oxygen through tiny tubes via his nose into his lungs.
Ms Oyeniyi says they set about applying for rent allowance and looking for a new home as soon as they were advised to by the RIA.
"But the welfare officer told us we couldn't get rent allowance because we are asylum-seekers. But the RIA said we aren't anymore.
"We asked why people we knew in Mosney and Athlone got the rent allowance and we couldn't? He said he would not discuss it."
They would like to leave the apartment on the Dublin quays, "because the air is dirty, and you can't go for a walk with the baby".
But a greater concern is the not knowing whether they will be suddenly forced to leave.
Another couple, Ms Marta Kizyzanowscy and Mr Edward Kizyzanowscy, gypsies from Poland, have been in Ireland for 17 months.
In a hostel in Tallaght under the "direct provision" scheme, they have also been refused rent allowance and worry about being made homeless. "They wouldn't explain. Just told us we couldn't have it, and to get a lawyer."
