Mr. Noel Waters:

As you will be aware, Chairman, the Government set up a working group to look at the entire direct provision system late last year and it reported in the summer of this year. The working group came up with approximately 170 recommendations to deal with people in the direct provision system. One of the major issues to be addressed is the length of time people are in that system. The real difficulty with the direct provision system is the length of time people are in it. Our focus at the moment is on the people who are in the system for more than five years, to get them out of it. In an ideal world, when the new legislation is turned on, we will reduce that caseload to the absolute minimum. It would be an entirely unhappy situation for us to be operating two parallel systems, one where people are being fast-tracked through the system and another for people who were logjammed in the system. Each case will be dealt with on its merits.

We are often asked if people should be given an amnesty, but that is a matter for the Government. I have no sense whatever that there will be an amnesty to deal with those cases. There are practical and political difficulties in terms of the European agenda around that issue. No country is in a position to move forward individually on this because a person who gets refugee status in one country in Europe can ultimately move to another country. That gives rise to major difficulties when one is talking about very large numbers of people. There is political agreement that there should not be any general regularisation schemes. Ireland, like other countries, makes decisions case by case. Where a person puts forward a good case on humanitarian grounds as to why he or she should remain, we will look at that. We have done so and continue to do so, with increasing numbers of people in recent months on foot of the working group report, with the aim of ensuring we get out of the direct provision system as quickly as possible as many people as possible who have been there for lengthy periods.