100 Asylum Seekers to be ‘Interned’ in Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville
Asylum Seekers in Moville
The Justice Ministry has just announced that 100 Asylum Seekers will be housed in the Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville.
It has become a Direct Provision Centre.
As Moville has a population of less than 1,500 this will add almost 7% to the population at a stroke.
Moville people are very welcoming but this will place a huge strain on them because of the numbers.
Interned in Caiseal Mara
It won’t be much fun for the Asylum Seekers as they will be virtually interned in the Caiseal Mara.
- They won’t be allowed to work to any money to support themselves
- They will have to survive on €21.60 a week.
- There will be limited access to education.
- They will not even be able to cross the border and go for a trip to Derry (although the bus fare of €9 would take 40% of their weekly income anyway).
- By the same token they can’t even go across on the Greencastle / Magilligan ferry.
- They won’t even be allowed to cook their own food.
- They may have to share their room with a stranger / strangers.
Moville People Very Welcoming
If this was being organised by the Government, local authorities or local churches or charities, Moville people would be very welcoming.
However, Direct Provision, who have organised this, is a private profit making organisation whose goal is not the the best needs of the poor Asylum Seekers but to make as much profit as they can.
Direct Provision is a national disgrace.
Not Asylum Seekers Fault
However, the Asylum Seekers should not be blamed for this. All they want to do is to escape the hell back home or to get an opportunity to work and to make something of themselves and to bring up their families.
Immigrants are getting a very bad press recently all over the world as the world has become nastier.
However, if immigrants are bad for a country, then America would be the poorest country in the world as they have over time taken by far the most immigrants from all over the world.
Benefits of Taking in Immigrants
People are forgetting the benefits that immigrants bring to a country.
For example the richest guy in Britain is Lakshmi Mittal, the steel magnate and an Indian immigrant who now employs thousands of people in the UK.
If he had never been allowed in to Britain, many thousands would not now be working for him in the UK.
High Handed Government
The Ministry of Justice has been very high-handed on just imposing this on the local people without any consultations on how it should be best done with local people and local authorities.
We saw, with the intended Carnagarve Sewage plant, how high-handed Government ministers can be and how little they care about what local people think.
However, while condemning the Ministry of Justice and the for-profit Direct provision system, local people should not take it out on the asylum Seekers who were already victims back home and are seeking a chance.
They came to Ireland, not for the €21.60 a week but because they believe it to be a country where they can prosper and make something of themselves.
They want a shot.
It’s just a shame the way it has been done – and that the poor Asylum Seekers are being treated like they are criminals.