It is 5 years since Ireland first experienced mass lockdown as a result of COVID-19. It is also 25 years – to the month – of the introduction of the Direct Provision system within the Irish state.
Designed as “a system for meeting the basic welfare needs of asylum seekers by providing full bed and board in designated accommodation units and a weekly financial payment”, Direct Provision has been controversial from its inception. In the years since it has faced high-profile court cases and claims of human rights violations – including lack of adequate food, lack of privacy, personal safety concerns, and an overall negative impact on the physical and mental health of residents.
In this article from 2021, author Patricia Brazil outlines the impact of the pandemic on those living within the Direct Provision system, particularly with regards to the significant health concerns presented by centres and the exclusion of working residents from emergency economic aids such as the PUP. As noted by Brazil within her full article, a government white paper published in February 2021 envisaged the development of a new system to replace Direct Provision that would be fully operational by December 2024. As of April 2025, Direct Provision remains the primary method for accommodating those seeking international protections in Ireland.
Patricia Brazil LL.B., M.Litt, Ph.D., Barrister-at-Law is the Averil Deverell Lecturer in Law at Trinity College Dublin where she lectures in refugee and immigration law, family law and child law. She has also practised as a barrister since 2004, specialising in the areas of asylum and immigration, family and child law. She regularly delivers conference papers at both domestic and international conferences pertaining to refugee, immigration and child law and has extensive publications in these areas.
Patricia Brazil, ‘Direct Provision in a Time of Pandemic’, Studies: An Irish Review, Vol. 110, No. 440 (Winter 2021-2022), 407-414. JSTOR link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/27135631
Direct provision was introduced in April 2000 as a system for meeting the basic welfare needs of asylum seekers by providing full bed and board in designated accommodation units and a weekly financial payment of €19.10 per adult and €9.60 per child. While it was not mandatory to live in direct provision, under the Refugee Act 1996 asylum seekers were prohibited by law from working while their applications were being processed. This meant that many had little choice but to live in the direct provision system, unless they had significant funds available to cover their accommodation and living expenses for the often lengthy duration of their asylum applications.
From the time of its introduction, the system of direct provision was the subject of criticism across a range of areas. There were concerns about the living conditions in some direct provisions, including lack of privacy, overcrowding in some shared rooms, food quality, social isolation, and lack of access to services. Other issues included the length of time spent by some people living in direct provision and the impact of extended stays on people’s mental and physical health. Particular concerns were expressed about the impact on children of living long-term in direct provision. The McMahon Report in 2015 made a number of recommendations for reform of the direct provision system including in relation to living conditions in designated centres, improvements in supports available for protection applicants, and speeding up the determination process.
Two high-profile court cases also impacted on the direct provision system: the High Court decision in CA v Minister for Justice led to the introduction of an independent complaints mechanism for persons living in direct provision, while the decision of the Supreme Court in NHV v Minister for Justice struck down the absolute prohibition on the right to work for asylum seekers. The Supreme Court decision in NHV ultimately led to Ireland’s decision to opt into the Recast Reception Conditions Directive, which sets out minimum standards for the reception of applicants for international protection.
Despite some improvements to the direct provision system as a result of these developments, many criticisms remained. The weekly financial payment to those living in direct provision was not increased at all between 2000 and 2017, which meant that the value of the already minimal payment had actually decreased when inflation was taken into account. A report by NASC in 2017 highlighted that not all of the McMahon recommendations were implemented, including measures to address the backlog in processing protection applications and improvements in physical conditions in some direct provision centres. The Ombudsman’s Annual Report for 2019 noted a number of complaints related to the use of emergency accommodation as part of the direct provision system, sometimes in remote locations with limited access to services and supports.
As of March 2020, there were approximately 7,400 people living in direct provision and emergency accommodation in Ireland. Concerns were quickly expressed about the impact of the pandemic on those living in direct provision, including the ability to maintain social distancing guidelines in light of the sometimes overcrowded living conditions. Direct provision was described by one infectious disease specialist as a powder keg for COVID-19, with calls from NGOs, including the Irish Refugee Council, to move people in at-risk categories to alternative locations in order to enable self-isolation and cocooning. The HSE extended access to temporary accommodation for healthcare workers living in direct provision, and the Department of Justice introduced a number of measures in light of the pandemic, including off-site self-isolation facilities. Nevertheless, MASI (Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland) issued a statement criticising the department’s response on the basis that the measures did not adequately address the situation of asylum seekers having difficulty observing social distancing.
These concerns were brought into sharp relief when it emerged in April 2020 that a number of residents at the Skellig Star Hotel in Cahersiveen, a recently opened direct provision facility, had tested positive for COVID-19. There were reports that residents at the Skellig Star were being unlawfully deprived of their liberty, although the Department of Justice insisted that the doors were not locked and that residents were merely advised to adhere to HSE guidelines regarding self-isolation for the duration of the quarantine period…There were calls for an inquiry into the decision to transfer over 100 asylum seekers to the Skellig Star in the midst of the pandemic and the lack of consultation with the local community around the opening of the centre. At the end of July 2020, up to thirty residents at the Skellig Star began a hunger strike in protest at conditions there. In response, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee announced the closure of the centre on a phased basis within the next few months.
However, reports subsequently emerged of further outbreaks in other direct provision centres. On 10 August 2020 the Irish Refugee Council published a report entitled ‘“Powerless”: Experiences of Direct Provision During the COVID-19 Pandemic’, which reported that 50% of respondents were unable to socially distance themselves from other residents during the pandemic and 42% shared a bedroom with a non-family member.
…There was also criticism of the exclusion of asylum seekers who had been in employment from the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment Scheme. Although this payment had initially been granted to some asylum seekers who were unable to work because of the pandemic, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection subsequently decided that asylum seekers living in direct provision were not eligible for the CPUP of €350 as their bed and board was provided and they were eligible for the direct provision allowance, increased in Budget 2019 to €38.80. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission expressed concern about the exclusion of asylum seekers from the CPUP scheme…In a speech on 3 August 2020, Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced a reversal of the policy excluding people living in direct provision from the payment.
On 5 June 2020…the Expert Group on the Provision of Support, including Accommodation, to Persons in the International Protection Process…delivered a briefing note on its work to date. The group said that the pandemic had exposed the unsuitability of the current system and made a number of recommendations that could be introduced immediately to improve the direct provision system, including a move away from the use of emergency accommodation, the introduction of vulnerability assessments, and the inspection of centres.
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The Programme for Government agreed in June 2020 between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party included a commitment to ending the direct provision system and replacing it with a new international protection accommodation policy, centred on a not-for-profit approach…Minister Roderic O’Gorman…described this pledge as a key priority and committed to moving people out of emergency hotel and B&B accommodation.
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Eighteen months into the pandemic, as the government proceeds with the lifting of restrictions notwithstanding increasing case numbers and rising hospital rates, what lessons have been learned in relation to the direct provision system? There remains a lack of capacity in the system, which means many people are still in emergency accommodation; this is often short-term in nature and can involve multiple changes, none of which is desirable in the context of an ongoing public health crisis. It is particularly surprising that the internal review by the Department of Justice in relation to its early handling of the pandemic, announced over a year ago, remains outstanding. It is vital that lessons are learned from mistakes made in the past to ensure that those mistakes are not repeated.
Ireland opted in to the Recast Reception Conditions Directive on 30 June 2018. A key feature of that directive is a mandatory obligation to carry out vulnerability assessments on all new applicants for international protection within thirty days of receipt of their application. One of the purposes of the vulnerability assessment is to identify those who have particular health needs such as a disability or medical condition, the identification of which is supposed to inform decision-making around assignment of suitable accommodation. There does not appear to have been any system in place for the completion of these vulnerability assessments upon the coming into force of this obligation in June 2018, and it was not until January 2021 that the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth announced the launch of a pilot project to undertake these assessments, with a review of the pilot due to be completed in December 2021…Given the use of shared bedrooms in some accommodation centres as well as communal bathrooms and dining facilities, it is vital that those with medical conditions that make them particularly at risk to COVID-19 are identified and assigned suitable accommodation to minimise the risk of contracting the virus.
Delay has been a longstanding feature of the Irish protection process, and while procedural reforms had been introduced in recent years to try to address this issue, the pandemic has undone at least some of this good work…The use of general mandatory hotel quarantine was abolished in September 2021, but it remains in place for people who arrive in Ireland and apply for international protection who do not have the option of completing a home quarantine. Another impact of the lack of capacity in the direct provision system is that reports have recently emerged of people being kept in quarantine for longer than the required period because of an absence of onward accommodation in the direct provision system. Figures obtained by Independent TD Catherine Connolly state that, since January 2021, 884 people out of a total of 2,890 people have stayed in quarantine beyond fourteen days. This clearly raises a number of human rights concerns, not least of which is potential violation of the right to liberty.
In the twenty-one years since its introduction, the system of direct provision has been the subject of repeated criticism. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the deficiencies of the system into even sharper relief. Until recently, government policy was based on trenchant defence of the system of direct provision in the face of an overwhelming body of evidence that the system was not fit for purpose. The recent commitment to ending the system of direct provision is welcome, as is the publication of the white paper which sets out a detailed roadmap for achieving that goal. For the thousands of people who continue to live within the system, it is imperative that this commitment becomes a reality without delay.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons: Vukasin Nedeljkovic, Asylumarchive.com