It’s the details that shock: children growing up in State-sanctioned poverty without enough toys or clothes; parents buckling under the strain of mental-health problems and unable to care for their children; vulnerable youngsters exposed to the kind of violence or sexual behaviour no child should have to witness.
But we shouldn’t be shocked, because yesterday’s disturbing report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) simply confirms, in many respects, what we knew already.
The experiences of hundreds of young people living in the direct provision system for asylum seekers have been documented over recent years by campaign groups, such as the Irish Refugee Council, and human rights bodies, such as the United Nations.
All have painted a troubling picture of the damage done to children by years of living in institutional accommodation, far removed from the atmosphere of a family home. Income poverty experienced by families only adds to children’s exclusion from society.
Toxic environment
Yet the State has repeatedly failed to improve conditions, despite overwhelming evidence the system is a toxic environment that is storing up problems for the future.
It has been deaf, seemingly, to the sound of criticism from the judiciary. Two years ago, the High Court in Northern Ireland ruled there was "ample evidence" of physical and mental health issues developing among asylum seekers living in direct provision in the Republic.
This followed a case in which authorities in the North were blocked from returning a Sudanese asylum seeker and her three children to the Republic, where they originally sought refugee status.
"Any analysis of the best interests of the children would have led to the inevitable conclusion that the best interests of the children favoured remaining in Northern Ireland," said Mr Justice J Stevens.
The State's Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, Dr Geoffrey Shannon, has repeatedly raised concerns that we may well be in breach of human-rights treaties because of the length of time young people spend in the system.
“We are in a situation where we treat children in direct provision as being second-class citizens,” he told this newspaper last year.
Last week, the Ombudsman for Children, Dr Niall Muldoon – who doesn’t have any power to investigate the treatment of children in the direct provision system, despite lobbying successive governments for changes – expressed similar concerns in a report.
His office is specifically excluded from investigating anything to do with asylum. When the ombudsman’s office asked for these powers to be extended to include direct provision, in 2012, the Government said it was not necessary.
While Hiqa’s report covers similar ground to that of previous reports by NGOs and human rights groups, what is significant, as the Children’s Rights Alliance pointed out yesterday, is that a State body with inspection powers has for the first time been able to shed light on children’s lives in direct provision.
The report confirms what many long suspected: that asylum-seeking children are many times more likely than children in the wider community to be at the centre of concerns over welfare or safety; that vulnerable youngsters are waiting years for a formal response from social services; and that many are never even seen by professionals who are responsible for investigating their wellbeing.
Recommendations
The Hiqa report provides a number of sensible recommendations aimed at ensuring that the system is safer and that concerns are responded to. But wider issues, such as the paltry welfare entitlement for children (€9.60) and faster processing of asylum cases relating to young people, are outside its remit.
Its findings should give added weight to the momentum for change. A working group set up to review the direct provision system is due to report shortly. NGOs, human-rights bodies and some members of the judiciary are well aware of what’s at stake.
The Government, if it is willing to listen, will have an opportunity to take the kind of decisive steps needed to ensure that other children aren’t damaged by a system that most agree isn’t fit for purpose.