Ms Oonagh Buckley:

I will begin by answering the Deputy's question about culture. As the Deputy may be aware, I arrived in the Department of Justice and Equality relatively recently. He will know that we are undertaking a substantial reform of the Department. I believe the Secretary General may brief the committee on that at a future date. I find the Department an interesting place to work. I have been a civil servant for a very long time and it certainly has a different culture from any place I have worked before. When I have spoken to the team who work on the direct provision system - the RIA team - I have been significantly impressed to see that people are treated as individual human beings. That is what the staff try to achieve. It is extremely difficult because of the pressure of numbers we are under. There is very much an attitude of seeing people as human beings.

I also was asked about the international protection system and the asylum process. There is a very legalistic process to go through. As with any legal process, people can find that very confrontational. When people come in and set out a series of facts, those facts are challenged and tested as part of a well laid-out process. The system is carefully monitored by the UNHCR and is extremely fair. I think the substantial reforms of the international protection system that were done in 2015 have led to a big change in timeframes and the approach to bringing all the decisions together. I will give an example of that. One of the McMahon recommendations was that people who had been in the process for more than five years would have their applications reviewed. Over 1,000 people received permission to remain on foot of that review. That was delivered quietly and effectively on a case-by-case basis.

I acknowledge that people can have a certain perception of big Departments like the Department of Justice and Equality. The Department has a security of the State function. Its work involves ensuring the immigration policy the State has decided on is deployed and enforced. There is, however, very much a regard for the human being in the middle of that. We need to keep focusing on that. Part of the goal of the reforms of the Department is to ensure that system prevails throughout. Freedom of information requests sometimes reveal that there are robust debates in the Department, as there are in every Department. Notwithstanding the personal view that may have been expressed by an individual in an email, the reform went ahead and is strongly supported by the Department. There has been an increase in the allowance for direct provision. We strongly support the implementation of the McMahon recommendations.