Ms Oonagh Buckley:

The second question the Senator asked was on standards. As I mentioned, the standards have been drawn up and were recently approved by the Minister. We are working with his office on establishing an oversight committee. As the committee knows, an oversight and inspection mechanism is part of the structures established for this. We have not yet determined what that inspection mechanism would be. What I can say right now is there are independent inspections of our direct provision centres to the standards that currently apply and they are unannounced. RIA itself makes two unannounced inspections every year and a body contracted by RIA makes a further unannounced inspection every year to make sure the standards that apply are being met. We certainly will look at the introduction of an independent inspection mechanism that will be subject to the oversight of a committee that will be there to ensure the Department manages and maintains the system to these new standards. I will hand over to my colleague, Ms Baxter, to discuss the detail of the standards.