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All asylum seekers remain in direct provision hostels until a decision is made on their application for refugee status. A number of asylum seekers are ‘lucky’ to be granted refugee status within a few months of arriving in the State – from where they can then move to private rented accommodation, find work or study. But for the majority, a final decision takes years – years of living in hostels.

Various studies undertaken identify the greatest number of complaints about the hostels relate to the Direct Provision Allowance, food, lack of personal space and the lack of the right to work.  

For a mother, being unable to provide food for her children – to cook for them, to choose what to cook, how to cook it, when to eat it – is taking away an important part of her maternal role. In all cultures, food is paramount, and being unable to provide it affects not only the mother’s mental health, increasing her sense of powerlessness, but also affects the health and well being of her children. The kitchen is the heart of every home, but not for the asylum seeker who has neither a kitchen nor a home.

All asylum seekers experience loneliness, and according to Mother Teresa: “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”  Any asylum seeker will identify with that quote; they are familiar with loneliness, believe that they are unwanted in Ireland and understand both material and spiritual poverty. Loneliness nags at the asylum seeker at every turn – they are far from family, friends, country and familiar surroundings, with virtually no control over their lives while living within the direct provision system.

Coupled with this is the experience of social isolation. Several of the hostels and centres are in relatively isolated locations, such as Mosney. Asylum seekers need money to travel if they wish to become involved in activities in the local community (here NGOs provide invaluable supports for them). Moreover, asylum-seeking families are denied child benefit, and parents have no money to give their children for extra-curricular activities or to partake in sport.

Privacy is a fundamental human right ¬– a right denied to asylum seekers living in direct provision hostels, especially those who are single. A single person usually shares a room with two or three other people. While one person wishes to sleep, another watches television, another might want to talk, another to be quiet. This causes friction, but more importantly it gives an individual no physical space or quiet time to be with oneself.

Asylum seekers living in direct provision hostels are not only excluded from the labour market, but also from full participation in Irish society. Yet as the late Carl T Rowan once wrote: “It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.”