Ms Oonagh McPhillips:

The difficulty for the State is getting into the market at the moment. If we tried to buy centres, we would be competing to buy a hotel or accommodation generally. The market is off-putting for us to enter into such an arrangement. The commercially-owned centres give us the capacity to flex as needed. Demand goes up and down. We were closer to 4,000 refugees at some stage last year but now are back up to 5,000. Purchasing accommodation and so forth does not give flexibility and we would have to compete on the open market.