Dr. Niall Muldoon:

It is very unfortunate. Whether it is used as an excuse or it is the reality, not being able to go into the centres to carry out the inspections that were meant to happen and to engage with the people the way we want them to be engaged is a real drawback. There are many situations within the direct provision system in which we did not move fast enough for Covid. We wrote to the Covid committee to highlight the lack of Wi-Fi and lack of computers. Not only did those children not get remote learning, they just were not in a position where they could ever possibly benefit from remote learning. That was behoven on the Government.

What are you talking about? You are talking about approximately 1,000 laptops. You would not even need that because they would not all be using them, but those sort of things could have been done rather rapidly with the WiFi connections.

My colleague, the children's commissioner in Scotland, talked about the reaction in Scotland in that within two months, they had sent out 30,000 laptops with WiFi bundles. You were not reliant on the direct provision centre to provide you with the WiFi, you knew you would secure your own. Most of the direct provision centres got their laptops through charitable donations. Are those the sort of things we should be allowing to happen? Those sort of things were down the list of priorities at times.

They had to rapidly move people around to try to separate them out but I believe they ignored the children's side of things. Families were moved from one place to another without co-ordinating where other family members were. Was Covid-19 used as an excuse? I do not think so but children were not high on the priority list when decisions were made during Covid-19 in the direct provision system. I have no doubt everyone was trying their best. We engaged with IPAS and the various principal officers. They were put to the pin of their collar in many situations but children were probably down this list with regard to the decisions which were made. Is that sufficient for the Chair?