Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are a couple of things I would like to focus on. I am conscious upfront of our time requirement and the indications from the Chairman. First, I welcome the change and the fact that it really does set out to address a whole-of-Department willingness to change a structure, which I believe - and I do not say this to the Department or the staff therein in a disrespectful way - was dysfunctional. I will not ask Mr. O'Driscoll to agree or disagree with that as previous colleagues did. The level of change that is now envisaged and that is outlined in what Mr. O'Driscoll has said today gives the answer to that question on what was there before. That is welcome. Likewise, there is no nitpicking reason to start looking at the cost of €2.9 million on the cost of what it delivered - and I am not a fan of EY in lots of ways. If this works, it will be some of the best few million euro spent within the area of justice in a long time. There should be more capability within the management structure to deliver the onward change in the Department of Justice and Equality and in other Departments, based on the template the Department has been supplied with. Allowing for the fact there clearly was not an effective roadmap and implementation structure in there to change the Department in the way it needed to be changed means the involvement of outside consultants in doing that will have been seen to be value for money if it delivers. That is the positive side of this. There was a lot of really positive stuff outlined there and as Mr. O'Driscoll said, it complements that policing change.

It is important that when people want to have a go at the Department on the way consultation is done with emergency accommodation - and Mr. O'Driscoll is probably right about the terminology on that - we need to be very upfront about what is happening in certain communities and meetings. We will look back at this in years to come as a nation. I have said this before and when I said it I received more concerted and concentrated nastiness on social media than I did on anything else I ever talked about. As a nation where millions of our people went abroad to gain a future, the way in which we have reacted to inward migration as a society is one of the great stains on our country. It is tragic to me. I say this openly and I do not care who it upsets. To have Irish Governments since nearly the formation of time be there for the Irish diaspora in the United States, right up to and including the present day, advocating for the Irish diaspora with the support of almost every elected politician, and to have a situation where we, as a country, then treat people in a worse way is mind-boggling. As a country, we do not even understand the hypocrisy of what we do sometimes.

That is why I want to come to one particular aspect of this because I am conscious of time and of letting other colleagues in. This will not mean a hill of beans if it is not implemented in certain areas. When it comes to immigration, I refer to the Irish Nationalisation and Immigration Service, INIS, and the way it deals with people. The way it deals with public representatives gives the lie to lots of this. One cannot get an answer, clear information or transparency and openness. As a public representative, I cannot get information. The real point I want the Department to take on board out of what I was saying is that this is not a policy matter. Why can someone not get their passport back for four and a half months? I am not asking the witnesses to explain why they did not get approved. I am asking why the most basic standards of treating people are not observed. I am asking why when one sends an email to INIS, one gets back a generic email reply that does not look like anybody even bothered to read one's email.

I could produce an email now to prove that I would receive a reply indicating that my email had not been read. It is about basic service treatment. If the Department wants to show the committee that it has changed, it needs to change that quickly. I am not asking a question on policy or whatever, I am saying this in the context of the retention of the documents of a nurse, including her actual qualification, in the Department in order that she cannot apply for another job in any other country and not even having the decency to reply to her. When I see that changing, I will believe the Department has changed. Until then, I am withholding judgment.