The system of Direct Provision is causing huge problems for asylum-seekers in one town outside Dublin, with most of those surveyed deeply unhappy with their accommodation and food, and almost everyone wishing to work or undertake further education, if allowed.
Under the Direct Provision Scheme, introduced in April, 2000, asylum-seekers are provided with full board and £15 a week "comfort" money.
The report, "Meeting the Needs of Asylum Seekers in Tralee", prepared by Partnership Tralee and a development group, KADE, (Kerry Action for Development Education), is one of the first surveys of its kind.
The 220 asylum-seekers in Tralee are drawn from countries in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Africa. The report finds that their needs are not being adequately met.
The executive summary launched yesterday recommends that asylum-seekers be allowed to leave the "institutional and isolating" centres of Direct Provision after six months at the latest.
The findings also indicate a dire need for more locally based translation and legal services, where asylum-seekers can wait hours in doctors' surgeries before a translator is available by telephone from Dublin.
Eighty per cent of those surveyed have not met a lawyer since arriving in Ireland, and there is no legal service for asylum-seekers in Tralee.
The research also took account of service providers and it found an overlap of needs in requests for translation services, and staff training to deal with asylum-seekers and liaison personnel.
Over half the adult asylum-seekers in Tralee took part in the research and their replies dispel the myths "of asylum-seekers living in luxury hotels . . . and arriving in Ireland to take State money", according to Ms Aoife Collins, the principal researcher on the report.
Almost all the adults - 96 per cent - wanted to work.
"They have a lot to offer. The respondents have work experience and skills in a wide variety of occupations including business and accountancy, teaching, construction, sales marketing, computers, journalism and furniture making.
"They have the potential to make a real contribution to the local economy if they had the right to work," Ms Collins stated.
Of the 80 adults surveyed, 85 per cent were unhappy with the conditions in their accommodation centres.
Overcrowding and lack of privacy, as well as not being able to prepare their own food, are the principal causes of distress.
A small number had experienced racist remarks, although there was also some evidence of this type of behaviour between whites and non-whites in the centres themselves, according to Ms Mary McGillicuddy of KADE.