• System of Direct Provision must be dismantled
• McMahon report does not go far enough
• Lives will continue to be blighted in this unjust system
Cllr Eilis Ryan, Workers’ Party Cllr for Dublin’s North Inner City, today criticised the recommendations of the McMahon Report on the Protection Process and Direct Provision. The report was made public yesterday amid increasing dismay about the system.
”The report does not go far enough in addressing the needs of people seeking asylum in Ireland”, said Cllr Ryan.
”In seeking to make changes to an already broken system, the report of the working group is offering only sticking plaster solutions”, she said. The report makes a number of recommendations about the provision of adequate eating, accommodation and family facilities in the Direct Provision centres, most of which are privately owned.
”The government cannot continue to stand over a system which blights lives year after year and this report points to the inadequacies of a system that holds these lives in a state of constant need”, said Cllr Ryan.
”I am asking Minister O’Riordain to accept and implement all of these recommended changes in advance of closing these centres” said Cllr Ryan.
”This can only be done in the context of Ireland’s international obligations to those seeking asylum and in the interests of justice and the meeting of people’s needs”.
”The Minister needs to take the only course of action which many of the residents themselves are calling for: to close the centres of direct provision and provide a future for those living in what amount to little more than detention centres”.
ENDS
For more information:
Cllr Eilis Ryan 086-3108553