Health Services – New Horizon Athlone

The medical services you received as an asylum seeker will continue if you have been granted refugee or subsidiary protection status or permission to remain.

The medical card gives you and your family access to medical services free of charge (some prescription charges apply). If you do not qualify for a medical card, you will be asked to pay for certain medical services. Contact your Local Health Office for details of GPs (family doctors) in your area.

See Citizens Information on health services.

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