Asylum Seekers, Refugees and the (Slow) Path to Justice in Ireland

Abstract

This essay seeks to provide some political and legal context to issues that arise from some of Melatu Uche Okorie’s stories, to provide some sense of understanding of the quagmires that arise when seeking protection, or a different life, in a land far, or not so far, from that of one’s birth. This essay strikes a more hopeful tone that the previous essay I wrote for this collection of short stories just a few short years ago. This is thanks to more awareness of migration, more appreciation of the need to listen and learn from those subject to institutional prejudice and a sense, albeit burgeoning, that racist injustices that continue today must be stopped. Change can be slow. Change may not be as rapid as is so sorely needed. Change does come. Change will come. Change must come.

Keywords: direct provision, This Hostel Life, asylum seekers, refugees, law, politics