Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Conlan and Mr. O'Neill for their presentations. Like a number of colleagues, I represent a constituency that has a significant asylum and direct provision community in Clondalkin. I work a lot with the residents of the Clondalkin Towers Refugee Centre, including those who are stuck in the asylum system and the approximately 40 families who have their papers and are yet to be housed. I fully support many of the council's recommendations but they are beyond the scope of the limited role of the committee. We will, however, return to some of them when the housing committee is established.

We have to make a report to the Dáil and, ultimately, to the Minister in a few weeks which will attempt to examine immediate interventions to alleviate the worst aspects of the housing and homelessness crisis, including for the group of people we are discussing.

There is a particular set of difficulties which the witnesses know more about than I do, but I will put them on the record. When people get their papers, even after six or eight years in the direct provision system, the specific difficulties they have even getting on to social housing waiting lists, let alone getting access to housing, are far more burdensome than for non-asylum seekers. There are huge language barriers and the waiting time in most of the big urban local authorities to get a housing needs assessment is now four months. That is even before there is a formal decision on it. Navigating that system is incredibly complex.

The social welfare issue is also very complex. I know of many cases of people who have gotten their papers in Towers and have been awarded jobseeker's allowance while still resident there. They are getting the reduced rate jobseeker's allowance which is the same level as they were getting under the direct provision payment so it is a slightly different description of the same reality the witnesses have described. What measure or measures could be put in place immediately, presumably via the local authorities, to try to assist the transition process and meet the specific needs of the post-asylum process individuals we are talking about? If we were able to fix that bit or make a very good, strong recommendation to the Dáil and the Minister, even on that bit alone, it would be a huge help.

When one gets on the lists in most of the Dublin local authorities it is a ten-year wait, irrespective of household size. In terms of accessing private rental accommodation with State supports through HAP or whatever, and with the recommendations we have to make to the Dáil and the Minister in mind, do the witnesses have any specific recommendations on how to overcome the particular barriers that post-asylum application individuals are currently experiencing?