Mr. Peter Tyndall:

Thank you, Chairman, for the opportunity to meet with the committee today. Members received the written statement in advance and I will not read it out. If I may, I wish to draw attention to a couple of points. The first one is that, as the committee is aware, we have taken the view that people in direct provision are in a very vulnerable situation. They may be suspicious of authority and English may not be their first language so asking them to complain in the conventional way to the Ombudsman by filling in a form online, for instance, may not be the most appropriate way. We have had a series of visits. Initially those visits were to direct provision centres and those visits continue. They are led by Mr. Garvey and Mr. Mallen, along with other colleagues in the office. I myself visit centres from time to time as part of that programme of visits. This year, the main change in characteristics to which I will draw attention is that in the established centres there has been a notable improvement in morale as a consequence of the right to work and access to shopping and cooking facilities. It had a notable effect on the centres, in particular when one visits them successively and can note the change. However, the other major change we have seen has been the use of emergency accommodation. Having reached a point where there is some improvement in the direct provision itself, within the emergency accommodation a lot of major issues are arising. We work as an office primarily on the basis, initially, of attempting to resolve complaints. Our main interest is in finding a solution for individuals rather than necessarily going on to produce written reports about each individual complaint. The use therefore of the summary of our work for the year, the digest, which the committee has had an opportunity to see, is an important way for us of making sure that any learning from the cases that result is not lost.

I will repeat general observations that I have made in the past, which will not come as any surprise to the committee. As a short-term provision, direct provision is fine. It is not ideal, but if people are coming into the country and need somewhere to stay briefly while their needs are being assessed, then it functions reasonably well in that capacity. The difficulty arises with the length of time people are having to spend in direct provision, for two reasons which are well known to the committee. The first is the lack of access to affordable housing. There are large numbers of people within the system who have the right to remain in Ireland but who are unable to satisfy their housing needs. That, in turn, has meant that many more people are in emergency accommodation. That is the principal issue.

For instance, there are unrelated adults living four to a room for many years at a time. That is not an acceptable situation and we continue to see that as part of our visits. Our dealings with the Reception and Integration Agency, RIA, and the Department of Justice and Equality have been positive and when we have tried to resolve issues, then they too work with us on trying to resolve them. When we come to it, I might talk about some of the issues we have been faced with such as access to GP services, and access to a personal public service number, PPSN, for individuals in emergency accommodation. We might pick that point as we go through. The situation is that there is improved morale in the settled centres, and a clear deterioration because of the use of many emergency centres.

Let me make a final remark. I have visited some of the centres which have been the subject of controversy prior to their opening. Last week I was in Lisdoonvarna. Earlier I was in Wicklow. It is important to note in the context of the current controversy that many of the supposed outcomes of opening a centre in terms of integration of residents and community, the attitudes of communities have not transpired and it seems to me that those centres operate in a reasonably settled way. That is just an observation. We will probably see more of the centres. We along with the Ombudsman for Children, are the only independent public body regularly visiting the centres, so that has probably given us a fairly wide perspective on the work that is going on.