Mr. Stephen Kirwan:

I thank the members for their time. In this profession - Mr. O'Dwyer will certainly attest to this - there can often be an awful lot of talking going on and ideas thrown around. We are delighted to have representatives of the community here to listen to us and help us to advocate. At the end of the day, the members are representatives of their constituents. The people we spoke about today are their constituents and will be for some time. They are not going away. International protection is not going away. Famine is not going away. War is not going away. The issue of people fleeing persecution is not going away. We can choose between two policy approaches: we can sit back and do nothing, or we can address those concerns. I note that IHREC's proposal and the Law Society's proposal contain a number of cost-neutral measures that could make an immeasurable difference to people's lives.

From the Law Society's perspective, we hope that Senator Buttimer, Deputy Buckley and Senator Murphy, who was present earlier on, will be advocates for change, that they will consider the reasonable proposals provided and that they will see, on the face of things, they are cost neutral. I reiterate what was said today. Without a time proposal in place, or if there is not a practical look at implementation, we could be back before the committee in six months or a year saying the same thing.