Ms Oonagh Buckley:

The third aspect mentioned by the Senator is vulnerability assessments. It is a legal requirement of the directive that a vulnerability assessment be carried out. I mentioned that putting people into emergency accommodation is not the optimal solution and it is not something we are keen on. Part of the reason for this is it becomes harder for us to offer the same assessment of vulnerabilities as is available in the standard direct provision centres. We also had a difficulty in Balseskin in we had a couple of cases of chickenpox, which is a very human situation. The protocol from the HSE is that we must not put children or women of childbearing age into that centre while a period elapses after the detection of chickenpox for obvious medical reasons. This has been challenging for us as the numbers of people arriving into the country are increasing year on year, and they have increased by approximately 30% every year for the past while. The chickenpox protocol has elapsed and we are now able to put people through Balseskin again. We are giving the necessary vulnerability assessments and health screening through Balseskin for arriving visitors. The HSE also has an arrangement in place with Safetynet Primary Care, which attends to places such as emergency accommodation centres to ensure medical and other screening can be done there.

The Senator is correct that vulnerability assessments extend beyond medical screening. They need to detect mental health conditions that may not be apparent in the first instance. It is a necessity that these issues get picked up as time goes by, and every instance where a person interfaces with the RIA, IPO or whatever provides another opportunity for the screenings and assessments to occur. Our advice to the GPs with whom we interface is that at any point where they detect them they need to feed them back, of course within the confidentiality limits that arise for anybody's medical conditions. Where they are known to the RIA, we can certainly address them. We continue to have to work towards making sure we meet the legal requirements. We believe we are meeting basic legal requirements at present but certainly it is something we need to work towards. It is not ideal, particularly in a situation when we have so many people in emergency centres. It is much better for people to be in the direct provision centres, despite the ongoing public discourse about them.

As the Senator pointed out, the use of commercial companies in the running of centres on State-owned property and contracting with private companies is a policy decision and this situation will continue. It is worth saying that we will require everybody we interact with to comply with the law of the land. For instance, they must have a tax clearance certificate. The obligation on us is to ensure value for money in the delivery of this demand-led service where there is a significant challenge with regard to the budget for the service, particularly this year. As the Senator rightly pointed out, the use of commercial companies is a policy decision and not one on which I can comment.