Mr. Sean Garvey:

We have a programme of visits and we have visited all the centres in the past couple of years, some of them more than once. We contact the centre a week in advance and alert it to our visit. We ask it to display a notice of our visit on its noticeboards and to bring it to the attention of residents, so that the maximum number of residents can speak to us on the day. We generally set ourselves up in an open, communal area within the centre because, even though we are satisfied that centres inform residents, some residents still do not know we are coming until they see us there on the day. If people want to talk to us individually and privately, we will have arranged a private room for that purpose. We explain our role and then speak to individuals about specific issues they may have. If it is an issue we cannot look at, we will tell them on the day. Such an issue may relate to delays in asylum applications, in which we have no role. If it is something we can look at, such as access to GP and medical cards, we take the individual's details and try to work something out for them with our contacts in the Department or the HSE. If there are centre-specific issues such as issues relating to food, access to cleaning equipment for rooms, etc., we always meet centre management after meeting residents to explore the issues. It is a useful forum in which to resolve day-to-day issues. Management may not have been aware of an issue and residents are sometimes reluctant to approach management directly. When they hear about it from us, we have found management to be open and proactive in resolving issues. For logistical reasons, we tend to visit a number of centres in the same geographical area over a two-day period as this means we can visit the maximum number of centres in the minimum time. This year, we have visited 25 full-time centres and between 12 and 15 emergency centres and we will do more.