Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

People in direct provision centres in this country have been treated appallingly. This is something I have said before, and I say it again today. Our Government has failed these people, and the people of the communities in which people in direct provision live. As I said a few months ago, this is a box-ticking exercise by the Government. It was trying to show Europe and the world how it was willing to take people in under direct provision, but not telling the world what conditions these people would be living in. All too often we have seen ten beds in one room. Is this the norm for many in direct provision? In March approximately 110 people in several direct provision centres, including a number of children and heavily pregnant women, were given scant notice and ordered to move to Cahersiveen in County Kerry, without testing in advance, in order to avoid overcrowding and the development of Covid-19 clusters.

They were forced to leave the lives they had started in Ireland behind. On 18 March, there was an outbreak of the coronavirus in the centre. In mid-April, the development of a Covid-19 cluster ensued, resulting in 24 cases to date. Since mid-April, all remaining residents have undergone the ordeal of a 24-7 voluntary but strongly advised confinement in the 56-bedroom centre, with restricted access to its limited outdoor area. They have also endured 14-day isolation periods in their small bedrooms, sometimes in recently infected rooms, some sharing with strangers and others as entire families. Together, we are now presented with a horrible new dilemma which only the witnesses and their colleagues have the power to resolve.

Was there a testing strategy in place to test people who were moved from one direct provision centre to another? If there was such a strategy in place, what percentage of the people in direct provision were tested and moved only on the basis of a negative result?