Irish community questioning why asylum seekers accommodation has been fast-tracked for rigorous public HIQA inspections whilst inspections on hostels that house Irish homeless families, men and women are kept secret.
We recently reported on Green Party minister Roderic O’Gorman briefing a number of Special Interest Groups in an online meeting regarding the Government’s White Paper to end Direct Provision by 2024. Minister O’Gorman confirmed that the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) will be resourced to begin inspecting direct provision centres in the coming months. HIQA are well known for their rigorous public inspections.
The Special Interest Group, Children’s Rights Alliance, whose Chief Executive Tanya Ward described the HIQA inspections of direct provision centres as “a game changer”.
However, according to EasyPM, property management service based in Ireland, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) are responsible for inspecting homeless hostels but doesn’t publish findings or reports.
Homeless hostels house families, single men and women on a temporary basis.
In some privately operated hostels, those staying there have complained about bullying by staff, unfair evictions, and a strict no-talking rule. Professionals say that some hostels also don’t put staff through Garda vetting.
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