Mr. Joe Mason:

I cannot give the Senator a definitive comment on whether those services are in place. My experience has been that they are not. There is no conjoined thinking at all, whether a person who comes into the country has a disability or they do not. It appears to be the case that the person will be rushed through the system. I have experienced this.

I will go back to previous points about whether we are capturing the data. The reality is that we are not. I do not believe that approximately 100 people who have disabilities have arrived into the State. I do not believe that to be true. I believe that the figure is significantly higher. However, that is the data that the HSE has gathered from the centres where people are registering.

I am not an expert on this by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, I spent spent three or four hours in one of the centres in Dublin Airport when we came back into Dublin Port. We were supporting the people to register. Even the facility itself was not fit for purpose. The location was not fit for purpose. Exceptionally well-meaning people, such as Dublin Airport Authority, DAA, staff, were volunteering their time to manage the location. There were interpreters, people from the Department of Justice and people from the Department of Social Protection. These were wonderful people and they were extremely well meaning. However, the process was to get people in and out the door as quickly as was humanly possible. These people are fleeing conflict after having suffered significant trauma. English is nowhere near being their first, second, third or fourth language. They were being asked questions by people who needed to tick a box so that they could move onto the next question. While I do not know the answer to this, I know that that is not it. There should be something else. We should be allowing people to take time to breathe, as well as allowing them to recognise that they have found a bit of safe harbour and have time to draw breath, fill their lungs and just be. Then they could go back, revisit these people and ask them questions.

Purely by chance, I know someone who works at Citywest. It is my understanding that going back in and re-interrogating the information has not happened. I use "re-interrogating" loosely because no one wants to be interrogated about anything. This is about going back to someone who gave information an hour after getting off an aeroplane or boat, having been torn from his or her home, and asking what his or her support needs are and what we can do for him or her. The sector that we live and work in and are a part of is not a one-size-fits-all shop. This is about creating space for people to go back after someone has had a shower, some food – I will not say that the person would be relaxed by any stretch of the imagination – and an opportunity to fill his or her lungs and ask what is needed of us.