Mr. Noel Waters:

I will ask my colleague Mr. Banks to come in shortly on that particular point because he is in charge of the Reception and Integration Agency. We have found ourselves in a situation where approximately 640 people are in direct provision centres who are entitled, in law, to be in Ireland. They have the Minister's permission to be here but they remain in direct provision because they are not in a position to access housing. Our Department is picking up the costs associated with that. Again, to go back to the humanitarian point, other European countries might force people to leave State-provided accommodation in those circumstances but we do not do that. We think that would be completely wrong to put people who have gone through the process and ended up being recognised as refugees or granted leave to remain, out on their ear. We do not do that to individuals or to children and families. We are meeting the costs in that regard.

I will ask my colleagues to give the committee a sense of our engagement with NGOs and other Departments to try to expedite the process of moving people on.