Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Should the witness have further questions, we will take them.

I am not trying to be uncompassionate to the day-to-day circumstances of the witnesses and the difficulties that they as individuals experience in different centres around the country. I have had first-hand experience of this in my previous job when I was very involved in setting up English and basic computer classes in centres in Cork city. I was always fascinated at how one could survive on €4 a week, which is one fiftieth of the social welfare payment for a non-dependent adult. When I worked in the prisons in Cork and Spike Island, the most popular class among prisoners was the cookery class because this was the one bit of independence they had in that they could cook their own dinner. What really struck me was the significance for prisoners in the Military Hill and Airport Road centres in Cork that cooking the food that they would eat gave them autonomy. Mr. Bukha painted a very vivid image of children never seeing their parents cooking food.

My colleagues who are still involved in that area ask me to table parliamentary questions to the Department of Justice and Equality and it seems to be an anomaly that if one asks questions on prisons and service activities, one will get a very detailed response on what is happening in the prisons. I am concerned that when similar questions are being asked about the people in asylum centres, and the people in these centres are not convicted of a crime, the information is not available.

In order to make progress on this issue, we may look at two different areas, the official avenues in which information can be provided under the freedom of information inquiries and the brokered tendered areas in which freedom of information inquiries can be made. I know that under the FOI legislation, the NGOs and organisations that are funded by the Exchequer should come within the scope of the FOI, for example, that might mean the NGOs from Concern and Trócaire. We might need to reconsider whether that could mean tendered private organisations acting on behalf of the State in the area could come under FOI. The purpose of so doing is to ensure there is a uniform standard, even if the standard is very low, that there is uniformity and consistency around the centres. Senator Barrett and Deputies McDonald, Boyd Barrett and Mathews called for substantiated information such as the questions they have put to the Department of Justice and Equality to which it has not responded in full as this would greatly assist us in pursuing inquiries under FOI.

Will Mr. Bukha provide the committee with the correspondence to the Department on the number of deaths and the evidence of the absence of a response from the Department? In regard to the four or five departmental heads, such as the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, I am sure it is not every aspect of the section on which they are looking for information under the FOI but particular functions of the Department that should come under the remit of the FOI. If he can provide that to the committee, we will certainly include it in our deliberations.

The Anti-Deportation Ireland, ADI, group has come before this committee but our engagement with your group does not conclude when you go out the door. There will be opportunities for ADI to feed in further information to the committee. Will the group provide the committee with the information within a two-week period, as this will assist us in our deliberations? On the specific issues regarding death notices, I am not too sure if it is an issue for the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality or whether we should refer it directly to the Minister for Justice and Equality as an issue that came to our attention. Is that agreed? Agreed. I will now take the concluding comments.