11 - Where is the vulnerability assessment tool? Disabled asylum seekers in Direct Provision in Ireland and the EU (recast) Reception Conditions Directive (2013/33/EU)

Summary

Introduction

This chapter will discuss the system of Direct Provision, which has been in place for the past 21 years to accommodate asylum seekers seeking international protection in Ireland. Direct Provision provides largely institutional, communal accommodation and access to some ancillary services, as well as a small weekly supplementary allowance to child and adult asylum seekers. This chapter will first give an overview of the Direct Provision system. It will then focus on the particular context of disabled asylum seekers living in Direct Provision, a group that has largely remained invisible in relevant discussions. It will further discuss the EU (recast) Reception Conditions Directive (RCD) (2013/33/EU) (European Union, 2013), which was transposed to Irish legislation in 2018 as ‘No. 230/2018 European Communities (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2018’ (Government of Ireland, 2018). Specifically, the RCD sets out the minimum standards for the reception conditions of asylum seekers by EU member states. It includes provisions to address the special reception conditions requirements for certain groups of vulnerable asylum seekers, with one such group being disabled asylum seekers. The RCD contains a legal requirement to develop a formal vulnerability assessment tool. Two and a half years after the RCD was transposed to Irish legislation, it is yet to be implemented. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the critical need for the Irish government to abolish the Direct Provision System, and to immediately develop and implement a robust vulnerability assessment tool, as is the legal requirement under the EU (recast) Reception Conditions Directive (2013/33/EU) (EU, 2013).

Direct Provision

Living in Direct Provision is the worst, evilest and unhealthiest thing that ever happened to me and my children. Seven good years of living in pain, agony and years of living in constant fear, not knowing what might befall you the next day. Seven years of my life were taken away from me by people who rendered me powerless and voiceless; years that can never be replaced, that have set me fifteen years backward, years that are permanently stuck in my head, years that have cost me so much regret, years that made me lower than my equals. Years that my life and that of my children were put on hold by a person or group of people who refused to make decisions and kept us in limbo for that long.