Mr. Peter Tyndall:

It falls squarely within our remit and it has been raised. In my opening remarks, I was clear that after progress had been made in direct provision centres, the use of emergency accommodation puts us squarely back into the set of problems we had at the outset with direct provision. Emergency accommodation, for all of the reasons members have explored, is entirely unsuitable. Because it is being taken on at short notice, there are issues about the length of stay that is possible, so people are finding themselves in exactly the circumstances which the Senator described.

The issue Deputy Connolly raised about the need to move people on who have received permission to stay is fundamental at the moment. The numbers do not quite balance but if people who had permission to remain were able to move out of direct provision, the use of emergency accommodation could be reduced to a great extent, if not eliminated entirely. While that is a problem for the individual or the groups of people who are moved, in reality that is a problem linked to the availability of accommodation for the reasons I have described.