Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

First, the people in direct provision centres are asylum seekers. Many of them have come through quite traumatic experiences and we are very conscious of that. This would obviously apply to the children as much as to the adults, and they may have experienced any number of challenges in their young lives. For that reason, we have a specific child protection policy for accommodation centres. Child safeguarding statements are published, and so on, and accommodation centres which have children provide a whole series of facilities for them. Of course, there is direct engagement with the HSE and Tusla around children's services. The higher level of referrals is something we should be very concerned about but it may also reflect, to some extent, proactivity in dealing with the challenges that we know people in our centres have, which is very important. This applies to adults but it particularly applies, in the context of the Deputy's question, to children.