Truth is stranger than fiction

What in God’s name is the matter with this country? Do we ever learn? The opening scene of RTE’s new Sunday night drama Taken Down shows a boat out on the ocean packed with refugee asylum seekers. Next a scene where an agreement is made to a mother and her two sons to give them what is called ‘direct provision’.

This is a means of meeting their basic needs, while claims for refugee status are being processed. Before the following scene, we read on the screen “eight years later”.

Then the drama unfolds, as we see the mother and her two sons all still living in the one room in this so-called ‘direct provision’. Why not be upfront and call them what they are — ‘concentration camps’.

This is supposed to be fiction but the factual situation is every bit as stark.

Some 55pc of those in direct provision have been there for five years OR MORE. Shame on us. Brian McDevitt,

Glenties, Co Donegal