Over 3,000 students will walk through Front Square during Fresher’s Week and feel the mix of excitement and anxiety that college life brings for the first time. Friends will be made and library fines will add up, but there is one girl who should be getting ready for third year that the state has forgotten.

The woman’s name has been changed for her protection, and she will heretofore be referred to as ‘Naomi’ – she is 20 and has been in the DP system in Ireland for five years now. Trinity News recently reported that the Department of Education and Skills have decided to allow asylum seekers access to third level grants, but this token measure only extends to those who have had their applications accepted.

For Naomi and countless other young people in DP, their application feels as if it will be forever ‘pending’.  The complexity and duration of this process is but one of many problems persons in the DP system in this country encounter on a day-to-day basis, as I learned on my recent trip to Mosney Accomodation Centre, County Meath.

My journey to the DP centre began with being dropped at the side of a regional road in heavy rain. I rang Naomi’s mother and she told me I would have to walk down this road for about 20 minutes before I reached the entrance to the centre. The rain persisted as I walked past mansion after mansion. When I arrived at the entrance, the sense of isolation only worsened. At the end of the long, winding driveway lay a field of caravans meticulously lined up.

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