Senator Ronan Mullen Independent Senator Rónán Mullen has criticised the circumstances around the burial of deceased asylum seeker, Sylva Takula, who died in 2018 and was buried by the State without ceremony last month, with no notice to friends and associates.
Senator Mullen said there should be an investigation to establish how such insensitive treatment occurred despite repeated requests from friends to be kept informed. He said: “This is yet another example of the many ‘accidental cruelties’ of the Direct Provision system. Nobody means to do harm and everybody does their job, sort of, but things seem to happen to persons in direct provision that don’t happen to other people because it’s a system without a heart.
“In ordinary life, nobody is buried without a ceremony and some kind of notice to the public beforehand, because paying respect to our dead and expressing sympathy to their bereaved is one of the ordinary decencies and necessities of human existence.”
Last month, Senator Mullen brought forward a motion in Seanad Éireann calling for earlier diagnosis of the mental health needs of asylum seekers.