The coming political year was supposed to be one in which the Coalition made good on one of its most eye-catching promises: to end the use of direct provision.
Instead, the system will turn 24 and the timeline for its abolition will certainly be pushed significantly further into the future.
In an interview with The Irish Times, Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman made clear that the recent influx of refugees and international protection applicants has entirely changed the picture. In 2021, he published a White Paper to end direct provision. It was published on the premise that 3,500 people would come through the system every year.
The reality is that more than 100,000 Ukrainian nationals have been granted temporary protection in Ireland, with more than 26,000 people in the international protection system.
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Because of this vastly changed context, O’Gorman said he will bring a revised White Paper to Cabinet this month that will have a new indicative timeline for ending direct provision.
“I think we will seek to put in place an indicative timeline. But it is clear that in terms of a Government that is in office until maximum March 2025 . . . this is going to be a longer-term piece of work and hopefully whoever is in government will continue that work. Certainly the timeline [for abolition] will exceed what the remaining timeline is for this Government.”
The upshot is that the existing system will remain in place for the foreseeable future, and without a building programme for State-run centres, the problematic reliance on private commercial providers will not end.
[ Catherine Day: The direct provision system has reached its limitsOpens in new window ]
It was 24 years ago, in November 1999, that minister for justice John O’Donoghue announced the government’s intention to introduce a system of “direct provision” for asylum-seeker accommodation.
There was a clear feeling in the government at the time that Ireland’s welfare system was acting as a “pull factor” for asylum seekers and that the numbers arriving were rapidly increasing, at a time when Ireland was experiencing an economic boom. The new system of direct provision became a formal policy in March 2000, a year in which there were up to 1,000 asylum seeker applications made every month.
Under the system the applicant’s basic accommodation and welfare needs would be provided for directly. They would not get full welfare payments and could not work. The plan was that applicants would remain for fewer than six months in the system. The reality was that people found themselves waiting up to 10 years for a decision. Even now, more than 5,000 people who have received a positive decision have been unable to leave direct provision because they cannot find affordable accommodation.
By 2001, the Reception and Integration Agency was formed. It didn’t take long for justice and advocacy groups to zone in on the issues that quickly emerged with direct provision.
In 2003, the Free Legal Advice Centres published Direct Discrimination, a report on the system which found that “the experience of dispersed asylum seekers living in direct provision . . . is one of social exclusion, poverty and hopelessness”.
Under O’Donoghue’s original plan, some 4,000 permanent spaces would be quickly constructed by the State. These never materialised. Instead, the system became more entrenched.
[ Direct provision may not end if Government does not act now, Coalition warnedOpens in new window ]
By 2014, the Rape Crisis Network Ireland was warning that individuals living in the system were vulnerable to sexual violence. By 2016, The Irish Congress of Trade Unions was describing the system as “inhumane and degrading”. In 2017, there was increased scrutiny of the profits being made by the private providers of accommodation, with criticism of the complete lack of independent living. But countless dire reports came and went every year.
After years of inaction, the pledge by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens in their 2020 Programme for Government to abolish direct provision was seen as a landmark one. The 2021 White Paper to make this a reality promised that the Government would “create a new system based on a not-for-profit approach, grounded in the principles of human rights” by the end of 2024. The reality is that the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russian war on Ukraine, the acute housing crisis and shifting global migration trends have dealt a fatal blow to the Government’s flagship plan.
The challenge for O’Gorman will now be to set out a fully realistic timetable that acknowledges the changed world around us, alongside a realistic plan – with deadlines – to ramp up the building of State-run accommodation. Whether he resists the temptation to pawn the problem off on yet another government remains to be seen.
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