Refugees in Athlone

History

A small number of refugee families have been living in the Athlone area since the early 1980’s. The original group were a number of Iranian Bahai families.

In 1999 the Irish government introduced the ‘Dispersal and Direct Provision’ scheme for asylum seekers. The asylum seeker accommodation unit in Athlone opened then. A number of former residents of the direct provision site continue to live in the Athlone area.

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