Ireland to opt-in to EU Reception Conditions Directive – what will this mean for asylum seekers?

The Free Legal Advice Centres report, Direct Discrimination?, was one of the first legal evaluations of the system of direct provision and the rights of asylum seekers. This 2003 report could be reproduced almost verbatim today, and still be of relevance to policy makers and rights advocates. For eighteen years, the direct provision system existed in a state of legal limbo, with no legislative basis for this system. In the intervening years since FLAC’s seminal 2003 Report, we had the Ombudsman, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), the Ombudsman for Children (OCO), the Child Rapporteur, countless civil society organisations, media investigations and a huge number of documentaries on the system of direct provision.