Ms Patricia Kennedy:

I worked for the past 20 years as a lecturer in social policy in UCD and the area of expertise I have concentrated on is maternity. Together with Dr. Jo Murphy-Lawless in Trinity College Dublin, I conducted the first study of the maternity needs of refugee and asylum seeking women. It was the first study of its kind in Europe. We made substantive recommendations and at the time I was pregnant. My daughter is now 14 and those recommendations are still there. I look at her and think of those babies.

Approximately ten years ago, Professor Bryan Fanning in UCD and Professor Angela Veale in UCC highlighted malnutrition among children in direct provision. In recent years, AkiDwA, which represents African women, highlighted similar issues, the high incidence of domestic violence and women keeping quiet when they were abused because they did not want the people in the next room to hear. Sometimes as a researcher one can get into places. I sat on the bed with some of these women. One woman was gang raped and was pregnant as a result of the rape. She had to leave her toddler with strangers when she went into hospital to give birth. One woman was lying on a bed having had a Caesarean section and her wound was oozing. She had not seen a medical professional.

These issues are constantly highlighted. Most recently, I conducted research funded by Daphne in eight different European countries into gender-based violence in direct provision. We trained eight asylum seekers to do the research. Most of those women had masters degrees but had no right to work in Ireland. We could not pay them to do the research because they were asylum seekers. They, therefore, did the research as an opportunity to improve their own plight and the plight of other asylum seekers. They talked about being unable to complain. They have third and fourth level degrees. If they complain, they will be moved or get less food. They also talked about incidents of gender-based violence within the reception centres and they have no right to complain.

Our Government is committed to an evidence-based policy. The evidence is there but nobody is acting on it. It would be worth it to draw the attention of the Ombudsman for Children to the existing research.