Mr. Noel Waters:

There is another issue. Clearly it would require substantial public expenditure. The envelope available to the Department is limited. We also have our own priorities. For example, a big priority for us in the next couple of years, reflecting the views of Oireachtas Members, is to ensure we will have a new forensic science laboratory. It will be a very expensive project. We have to measure it against the available funding from the Government and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. If anyone can come up with a better model, we are quite open to considering it.

I wish to make one other point. We expect to be in a position fairly soon where people who apply for asylum will have their applications dealt with within a period of perhaps nine to 12 months. In the European model, if someone does not have status within nine months in particular cases and he or she has co-operated with the system, he or she will be given limited rights to work. Whether we would wish to do that will be a decision for the Government at some point, if we get to it, but it is important to demonstrate to the committee that our minds are not closed in examining the options.