Ireland/Direct Provision

Direct Provision (DP) is a programme of the Irish Government for asylum seekers. They are housed in specific facilities (former hotels, apartment blocks, mobile home parks etc), with a limited stipend (around EUR 20 per person per week) which may only be spent in certain outlets.

Direct Provision centre, Athlone

Known Direct Provision Centres

• Baleskin Reception Centre, Co. Fingal, near SW corner of Dublin Airport. 160046671 160046671
• Mosney Accomodation Centre, Co. Meath. 736962660 736962660
• Lissywollen, Athlone, Co. Westmeath. An expanse of small static caravans on an asphalt area. 4038311 4038311
• Lisdoonvarna, Co. Clare. In the premises of the former King Thomond Hotel.
• Moville, Co. Donegal. In the premises of the former Caiseal Mara Hotel. Mapped, but possibly on wrong side of road.
• Borrisokane, Co. Tipperary.
• Balinomore, Co. Leitrim.
• Oughterard, Co. Galway. In the former Connemara Gateway Hotel.

Planned centres

• Roosky, Co. Roscommon. Not proceeded with, due to local opposition.

Recommended Tagging

The basic tag for DP centres is amenity=social_facility, with additional tags social_facility:for=asylum_seeker and social_facility=refugee_housing. For larger sites landuse=residential, whilst for smaller sites such as old hotels just mapping the building is sufficient.

Centres are usually well-known locally: in a few areas there have been significant protests against the opening of a centre. Many will have resulted in an in flux of children to local schools.

Finding Centres

Local newspapers usually provide extensive coverage of local reaction to the setting up of a centre. Nationally, the Irish Times has had a number of features about individual communities initial, and later, responses (e.g. Roosky, Lisdoon & Oughterard, Ballinomore & Borriskane).

This extensive local coverage and things like local facebook campaigns largely means that, although there may be significant hostility and racist sentiment against the asylum seekers, adding DP locations is not likely to expose them to further risk. Larger centres such as Lissywollen and Mosney are such distinctive landuse patterns that they had already been mapped without detailed tagging.