Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief as many of the questions already have been teased out. I thank the witnesses for attending and presenting such comprehensive documents to us. I refer to Senator Black's point about the effective right to work and the mismatch between the apparent right and the effective right. Do any of the witnesses have real-time information on what is happening in that regard? Are people getting jobs? Are there examples that can be given? How effective is the right?

How specific are the service-level agreements between private contractors and the State in respect of trying to improve the threshold of intervention regarding health, proper accommodation and so on? How effective is the oversight mechanism involved? Mention was made of national standards for accommodation and the introduction of an inspectorate to oversee them. Who would run that? How effective might it be? This committee in particular but others too have dealings with lots of siloed inspectorates and oversight mechanisms which are accountable to different bodies. Does it come back to the original point of having one unified body or agency to deal with this in a more holistic way?

I refer also to the healthcare issue, including mental health for people coming from war-torn countries. In my area in west Dublin, we have a lot of people who have gone through the process and who are now out the other side. The problem is that it does not end there, as the witnesses know, as to the healthcare deficit and housing issues. In terms of the afterpiece, do we need to oblige local authorities to be involved to a greater extent or even to improve the legal threshold with regard to healthcare rights for people who come out of direct provision and who are potentially accommodated? How do we continually provide a rounded intervention for them as they progress through society? In Canada, for example, that is done in a positive way at an early stage and they see the positive effect it has for their society. In Ireland, however, we are forever playing a game of catch-up which means the person in difficulty is never given a chance. That is what we must all seek to deal with. Those are some general points.