International Women’s Day – New Horizon Athlone

Lip Service to Right to Work

Some information on the proposed right to work scheme: If an asylum seeker wants to enter PAYE employment, for example, the job must not be…

Gerry Callaghan 2018-02-05

International Protection Family Reunification Bill

Posting from Senator Alice-Mary Higgins . I am delighted that our International Protection (Family Reunification) Bill passed committee stage in the Seanad yesterday with…

Gerry Callaghan 2017-11-10

Information Session on Labour Market Access

There is still a lot of uncertainty about the right to work for asylum Seekers. If you are interested please attend this session. Sarah McGeough,…

Gerry Callaghan 2018-08-16

Online Education Review Meeting

The rescheduled online education progress meeting is now on Wednesday 16th in the education room on site. Agenda Check in – Anything interesting happened since…

Gerry Callaghan 2017-08-12

Amnesty International Online Course on Refugee Rights

Amnesty International are offering a massive open online course (MOOC) on human rights. It will help you gain the knowledge to defend and promote the rights…

Gerry Callaghan 2017-08-23

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

Related Articles