Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

We agree that it has changed. I was speaking in the present tense. We are very conscious that in the past, a number of Deputies raised the issue of being able to canvass people, meet residents and so on. I think a lot of progress has been made on that. If there are any issues that arise from time to time, I ask people to notify us in order that we can sort them out. People make mistakes. My understanding now is that people have the right to canvass. In fairness, I have been in a few centres. In one centre I visited, I could not see that there should be any problem in canvassers accessing the place in a perfectly normal way. In another centre, it was more difficult to say exactly which space was the private communal space, to which one would not realistically expect canvassers to have access, and which space was the public space. Distinguishing those things is not always absolutely crystal clear. As I have said, people can make mistakes.

I will explain what I think about all of those things and why I reacted to what the Deputy said. I was not reacting to the Deputy's comment, in particular. From time to time, there is public comment which grossly exaggerates the constraints under which people operate. I accept that they are operating under constraints. The Deputy is quite right to say they do not have the right to work for the first nine months. That is a right enjoyed by the Deputy and me. That is absolutely true. In many cases, these people are coming from difficult circumstances and are probably finding it difficult to navigate our services as they access them for the first time. We try to assist them in that. They have rights in that space which we try to vindicate. The broader point I wanted to make was a simple one. I want to make it clear that people have freedoms here and that some of the commentary out there is a bit unfair.