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In November 1999, in response to a lack of accommodation in the Dublin area and a desire to deter future asylum applications, the Government announced a pilot programme to “disperse” asylum-seekers to locations outside Dublin. As a result, asylum seekers were sent to communal accommodation centres on full-board and reduced social welfare payments.
The policy was introduced nationwide in April 2000 on the assumption that such stays in communal accommodation would be of a short-term nature, as it was the Government’s objective to definitively process all asylum applications within a 6-month period. However, there are currently asylum seekers who have been accommodated in such centres for more than 18-months.
Currently approximately 5,000 people — from over 100 nationalities — are living in different forms of temporary communal accommodation in 84 centres in 24 counties. The number accommodated in each centre varies from 20 to 400, and many of the larger centres are situated on the edge of towns or suburbs leaving asylum seekers segregated from mainstream society, both physically and mentally.
Huge regional variations exist in the implementation of this system. Some asylum seekers have to share a room with up to 5 others, with no access to services and to eat food that some dislike intensely, and at a time not of their choosing, whereas others have their own bedrooms and cook their own food at a time that is convenient to them.