Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is why today’s meeting is so vital and we are particularly delighted to have asylum seekers who are living in the system here to tell their stories. It is powerful for the committee. Everything we are hearing will feed into our recommendations. The Office of the Ombudsman and Information Commissioner, held by Mr. Peter Tyndall, and previously by Ms Emily O’Reilly, has repeatedly asked for oversight of the asylum seeking process and direct provision centres.

Part of our committee's deliberations is to build up the evidence as to why that should happen and also look at the whole system. I thank Ms Conlon for attending the committee today. We really appreciate her presentation which was extremely helpful to our deliberations.

We will suspend for a moment now to facilitate the entry of our next witnesses.