Christmas 2020 – New Horizon Athlone

Seasons Greetings and Thank You

I’d like to wish seasons greetings and a happy new year to all New Horizon friends; volunteers, supporters, donors and residents. Thank you for all…

Gerry Callaghan 2020-12-24

Going – Going … Gone!

Our Gofundme page “Bring some Christmas Magic to Direct Provision” has now closed. On behalf of New Horizon Refugee Support, and the residents of the…

Gerry Callaghan 2020-12-16

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