The Irish Refugee Council (IRC) has written to the Government expressing “deep concern” about the situation facing homeless asylum seekers.
In correspondence marked “urgent”, seen by The Irish Times, the chief executive of the council, Nick Henderson, said the Government policy related to male asylum seekers is “dangerous”.
“This current policy, that requires men to sleep rough to demonstrate need for accommodation, is dangerous, erodes public confidence in our asylum process, places additional pressure on busy charities, places enormous pressure and risk on individual volunteers who have supported people for three years,” he said.
“It is particularly concerning that this persists when there are beds within the IPAS [International Protection Accommodation Services].”
RM Block
The latest figures from the Department of Justice show 613 male asylum seekers have not yet received State-provided accommodation. A person without accommodation is given a €113 weekly allowance, which is €75 more than international protection applicants who are housed in State-provided accommodation.
The department says IPAS can “make offers of accommodation to any applicant who is rough-sleeping, identified through outreach”.
At the end of October there were 3,480 “beds available” in centres operated by IPAS. These included 2,430 “mixed-accommodation beds”, 600 “single-male beds”, and 450 “family-only beds”.
Twice on Friday gardaí moved on about 20 male asylum seekers sleeping rough in locations in Dublin, Mr Henderson said in his correspondence. Their evening location, in Dublin’s south inner city, is “one of the only remaining parts of the city that [IRC] volunteers think is the least dangerous”, he said.
On Saturday morning, he said, the group queued for food at a charity and were then advised to return to the same location in south Dublin so their rough sleeping could be verified.
“This is a small, 48-hour snapshot of a policy that has gone on for nearly three years,” he added.
Mr Henderson told The Irish Times it “doesn’t make sense for the guards to move people on, when those men have to stay in the location at which they’re rough sleeping in order to be verified”.
In a statement, An Garda Síochána said the organisation “has an obligation to respond to complaints or proactively manage encampments in public places”.
“It is a criminal offence for a person to pitch a tent on public land, or on private land without consent. Depending on the particular circumstances of each individual case, the person may be moved on, requested to remove their tents or the tent may be seized if there is a refusal to remove the tents,” the statement says.
The Department of Justice has been contacted for comment.
