Mr. Brian Purcell:

We did the value for money report and it indicated there was no way we could introduce a system that could be run more cost effectively. My recollection is that direct provision costs the State one third less than it would cost another system to deliver. As Accounting Officer for the Department of Justice and Equality, I know that if all the direct provision costs in my Department's Vote were gone, there would be substantial savings in the Vote. This would be most welcome from my perspective, but the result would be that the overall cost to the State would be significantly greater than the cost of direct provision to the Department currently. Before we can get out of direct provision, we must reduce the numbers in it. If we were to try to do that very quickly or any time soon, we would not have a seamless transition and there would be massive costs involved.