Fine Gael and Labour pledge to review asylum system

Published: Wednesday, July 07, 2010

JAMIE SMYTH Social Affairs Correspondent, Irish Times

FINE GAEL and the Labour Party have pledged to fundamentally review the asylum system and consider allowing asylum seekers to work if they get into Government.

Both parties strongly criticised the asylum system at the Oireachtas justice committee yesterday, with Fine Gael claiming the situation at Mosney was an "utter disgrace" and comparing conditions at some asylum centres to "prisoner of war camps".

Asylum seekers protested for a third successive day at the former Butlins holiday camp yesterday over a decision to move 111 people to a hostel in Dublin at short notice and without consultation.

A bus to transfer the residents to the Hatch Hall hostel in Dublin arrived in the morning and left in the afternoon without any of the asylum seekers getting on board.

Salome Mbugua of AkiDwA said women were exposed to gender bias within the asylum system and called for greater protection for women who may have been exposed to trafficking, sexual violence and rape. She said women living in direct provision often had no access to female doctors and faced intimidation at communal hostels.

AkiDwA is campaigning to have one of the 53 centres for asylum seekers made female only.

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