Dr. John Lannon:

I can respond to a number of those points and Mr. Henderson might deal with some of them. The Ombudsman for Children's report is quite stark. Some of the issues highlighted in it chime with us and, more importantly, with the people we support, particularly the problematic nature of the lack of inspections and the need for an independent complaints procedure. Those issues date back quite a few years. The ombudsman and others have highlighted there is quite a degree of widespread fear among people of coming forward or highlighting issues related to conditions or lack of access to services in direct provision centres.

The ombudsman clearly said that, essentially, it did not have the best interests of children at its core. I would say the situation is better in some of the centres that have been opened in appropriate locations that have fully own-door access and accommodation, where families can themselves look out for the best needs of the children. That is better than the congregated settings and situations where children are really suffering and in particular, their development is suffering. We see that across the board.

I will comment on something the Deputy mentioned with regard to community support. Community support has, by and large, been wonderful around the country for people and families who are in direct provision. I do not know of a centre in the country in which there is not someone in the community who could be called upon to give a hand or to help out if necessary. That is in stark contrast, I must say, to much of what would have hit the media with regard to protests on the opening of direct provision centres in communities. Communities are, by and large, very welcoming and open to having protection applicants or others living in their community.

I will address some of the other questions on unaccompanied minors and the numbers affected. We do not have tracking. One of the issues and problems here is that the people disappear out of the system when unaccompanied minors come in and we do not know where they end up. They have disappeared after coming into the country. This is a problem. We should not and do not have situations where people are recognised as being under 18 and are unaccompanied in direct provision centres but we have had a number of cases of people whose age was disputed and there was evidence to strongly suggest they were less than 18 years old. They were, however, accommodated in direct provision centres and that is really problematic because of the special reception needs they would have. Again, that was highlighted by the Ombudsman for Children's report.

Perhaps Mr. Henderson would be best placed to speak about the targets and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. He might like to comment on that and then I can come back to some of the Deputy's other points.