Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with much of what Dr. Thornton said. It follows on from a previous point. Applying for the mainstream system and having specific accommodation for people who are applying for international protection are not mutually exclusive. The way the system is at present, unfortunately, for the entire population, a single applicant for housing would be in line for 11 or 12 years on a local authority housing list, particularly in the cities. What makes sense to me is that a person would have own-door accommodation of a standard provided immediately but that he or she would be entitled to apply for local authority housing and, assuming the person could find it, which is difficult at present, he or she could apply for HAP just the same, but that that person would have that minimum standard to be able to work from. If people are forced to wait for their applications to be processed and status to be granted, that could take three, four or five years or maybe more, and then another nine, ten, 11 or 12 years on top of that before they get accommodated.

Earlier, there was a fair bit of discussion on the unaccompanied minors. I have a brief question. It may have been included in some of the submissions. Is there an available figure for the number of unaccompanied minors in the system at present?