Blog - New Horizon Athlone

Limerick integration project gets funding

A project to integrate refugees and asylum-seekers into local communities has won €9,000 in European Union funding. Called ReStart, it is run by the Enactus…

Angela 2020-11-16

Course offers innovative thinking in business

NUI Galway includes refugees and asylum-seekers in this programme. TechInnovate, a study centre at the NUI University in Galway, is running a six-week course starting…

Gerry Callaghan 2020-11-09

Apply for a laptop computer

Many educational and training courses have had to move online due to the Covid-19 lockdown. This creates problems for many people. It’s almost impossible to…

Gerry Callaghan 2020-11-02

Direct provision ‘should end by 2023’

The direct provision system should be phased out, starting in less than three years, according to a new report for the Irish government. A three-tier…

Gerry Callaghan 2020-10-22

IMPORTANT NOTICE: COVID-19 restrictions from October 22

Update from the IPO: All substantive protection interviews are cancelled from Thursday 22 October 2020 until further notice. “Please find below a copy of…

Gerry Callaghan 2020-10-21

Music and song good for people in DP

It’s difficult to achieve during the pandemic, but new research emphasises the importance of singing and access to arts for people in direct provision. The…

Angela 2020-10-12

Success story for Syrian refugee

Her mother says Suaad Aalshleh has “worked her heart out”, but it’s paid off — the 18-year-old refugee won a scholarship to study medicine, and…

Angela 2020-10-12

Take time to rhyme

Here’s an opportunity to meet people online and express yourself through poetry. Tell your story in any of the many forms that poetry can take.…

Gerry Callaghan 2020-10-08

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FAQ’s

We are a front line refugee support group mainly working on the Lissywollen Direct Provision site in Athlone. Our focus is on providing information and help to the 300 (on average) residents living there.

We also work on the Temple Direct Provision site in Horseleap, Moate.

Everyone in the DP sites in Athlone and Temple is what is described as a ‘Convention’ refugee. People who have arrived in Ireland under a United Nations resettlement program are known as ‘Programme’ refugees.

Convention refugees are people who have made their own way to Ireland and have applied for recognition of refugee status when they arrive.

Various official and unofficial routes and methods are used to travel to Ireland. These change continually, depending on weather conditions and enforcement levels at crossings.

On arrival people are normally housed for a few weeks in Baleskin, near Dublin airport. They are then dispersed to various direct provision centres around the country.

People can get protection if they meet the conditions set out in The United Nations Convention on Protection of Refugees.

See Definition of a Refugee