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I live every day to get the most out of it

Metro Eireann, January 2008

Colin Murphy speaks to Rilwon Jaiyeola, who entered the direct provision system when he arrived from Nigeria as an asylum seeker in 2002

How does an asylum seeker survive on an allowance of 19.10 euro a week? Rilwon Jaiyeola has the answer.

“Go to Tesco. Buy a bottle of MiWadi, a jar of Nutella chocolate spread, and a loaf of bread. That’s five euro. Get a 5-euro top-up for your mobile phone. Then you’ve got a few euro for a bar of chocolate, or chewing gum, or to put toward something you need.”

Rilwon lived like that for three years. He originally came to Ireland from Nigeria in September 2002. He says he lost contact with his parents a year before, during upheavals in the northern province of Zamfara, which implemented Sharia law in 2000. He was 14, and alone.

Rilwon was put in the care of the Health Board, and placed in a hostel where his meals were provided, under the Department of Justice system of ‘direct provision’. Over the course of four years, he lived in four different hostels.

He went to school and did his Leaving Cert, twice; he got the points he needed the first time, but asylum seekers receive no support with their fees at third level, so he couldn’t afford to go on to college. Repeating the Leaving was an alternative to hanging around doing nothing – asylum seekers aren’t allowed work.

By his third year living on 19.10 euro a week, he was desperate, and he got a cash-in-hand job. He earned between 15 and 20 euro a day handing out flyers and free newspapers. He wasn’t paid by a company , but by the man the company had hired to do the job, who paid Rilwon a fraction of his pay to do the job for him. Rilwon gave it up after a few weeks.

Eventually, Rilwon got lucky. “I got a deportation order,” he says. “That was my breakthrough!”

He had used his time well during the preceding years, getting involved in a choir, a drama group and with the St Vincent de Paul and the YMCA. He had also met a solicitor who had offered his help if it was ever necessary. “These stood up for me when I was in trouble,” he says.

People made representations on his behalf, and the solicitor took a legal challenge. The Department of Justice settled, and offered Rilwon a year’s residency – renewable if he doesn’t get into trouble and doesn’t cost the State anything.

That was a year ago. He has since found a job in an insurance firm and is studying accountancy part-time.

“I live every day to get the most out of it,” he explains. “I believe you can do whatever you want to do if you stay focussed.” Not everybody in his situation was so focussed, however.

In his four years spent between hostels, he witnessed three situations where residents stabbed or cut themselves. Sometimes, people would lock themselves in their rooms for days. Others developed drug habits; some started selling. He often saw people get angry, sometimes violently.

“You’re living a life where there’s no progression, where you can’t aim higher,” he says. “You’re doing the same thing every day. You’re not given an opportunity to do stuff that would make you feel a part of society.

“Where do people make good friends? In college. You’re not allowed to go to college. Where else do people make good friends? At work. You’re not allowed to work.”

Like many other asylum seekers, he says the food in the hostels was one of the greatest aggravations: “Food is a big part of human life. We eat what we want, when we want.”

This was not the case in the hostels. The food was often poor quality, he says. There was little or no choice, and it was very repetitive. There was little or no accommodation of cultural preferences. Residents did not have access to the kitchen outside meal times, and could not cook for themselves.

But it wasn’t all bad. Rilwon came to Ireland alone, yet found a family in the friends he made at the hostels.

“They were the only people I could rely on,” he says. “The hostels were a good thing, in a way.”