WATER IS NOW BEING RATIONED. That’s in the Skellig Star Hotel, in Cahirsiveen, which is being used as a Direct Provision centre, despite it being described as ‘completely inappropriate’ by a public health official. 32 residents are in the third day of hunger strike. I named the owner in the Dáil this morning, and the fact that I named him seems to have been of greater concern to Varadkar than the welfare of the asylum seekers.
DIRECT PROVISION IS INHUMANE as the very least. It’s a disgrace in Miltown Malbay. Rodent infestation, inadequate heating, bad food and NO INSPECTION, despite the committment to 3 inpections per year of such places (that the taxpayer is forking out big money to well connected landlords for). I raised this in the Dáil last night.
Bríd demands answers in relation to the rights of workers in Debenhams, on the extension of Covid payment to maternity leave and to workers in Direct Provision.
The degree to which the bureaucracy evades, avoids, and passes the buck is amazing. One wonders why they are paid so much to so. But then you realise it’s all about covering up the sins of the government, who treat vulnerable people like dirt.
Today in the Dáil, we challenged Minister Flanagan over the appalling treatment of asylum seekers in Direct Provision during the Covid crisis. The conditions there are an abuse of human rights at the best of times, for the 6,000 plus residents, but at the time of Covid, they may well be fatal. We now have 149 cases in 10 clusters. The government farmed out ‘care’ of asylum seekers to for-profit companies which costs the taxpayer €70 million a year. The people of Cahirciveen have shown magnificent social solidarity with the 120 assylum seekers packed onto a bus and sent down there – would that the government had as fraction of their decency.
Bríd raises questions in relation to nursing homes and Direct Provision, in the context of Covid 19.
The well fed, well clad, Noel Grealish TD will probably never know what its like to be hungry or cold or fearful of his life, not the way thousands of refugees do. He was leader one time of the PDs, a right-wing split from Fianna Fáil, champions of privatising everything. And now he wants people to blame migrants for what he and the likes of him did to this country. A vile man.
In the Dail committee today, 25.9.19. various aspects of the very harsh conditions of Direct Provision for Assylum Seekers and Refugees was discussed. This video is of exchanges between Bríd and the Ombudsman
END THE INHUMAN TREATMENT OF MIGRANTS! We discussed refugees, assylum seekers and related issues today in the Dáil. I referred to the misery endured by migrants in Ireland and globally, forced by war, famine and poverty to leave their homes; the wars often caused by the big Western powers and their allies – like Saudi Arabia. These migrants deserve our respect and support – not the cruelty of Direct Provision centres, or as exploited labour in poorly inspected industries – like fishing. Migrants can contribute to society – they must be allowed to so do
Assylum seekers have had a raw deal, many waiting up to 10 years or more in the miserable conditions of Direct Provision. So – welcome the news that the new judgement allows the right to right work. But will this government try to wriggle out of doing the right thing.