Tom Brabazon (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for his presentation. It certainly brought great clarity to the Government's position on this area and I welcome that he is endeavouring to speed up the process. It is fair for both the taxpayer and asylum applicants that they are dealt with quickly and that decisions are not left hanging over people. That is an aspect of human rights that has been overlooked for a number of years.

In his presentation, the Minister mentioned that 5,000 people who have been granted status to remain in accommodation and that some of them are working but do not contribute to their accommodation costs. Recently I received a phone call from someone who had heard a story like that and was irate that a family member was paying extraordinary high rent in the Dublin area. The source of anger seemed to be that people from abroad who do not have as long a connection with the State as taxpayers and contributors to the economy were being accommodated for nothing. Is there a plan to change that or assist them? It is problematic because, in a lot of cases, we could end up adding to the already long social housing lists, but it is something we need to look at to bring about fairness between new Irish and Irish people who have a longer standing in the country.

A lady contacts me quite regularly about these matters. She is a reasonable lady and she is part of the pinched middle as it were. She is always keeping an eye on money that is being spent on taxpayers' behalf and gets quite rightly irate about the amount being spent on IPAS. That is one of her pet subjects that she contacts me about. She is a reasonable person to talk to and she knows her stuff. She mentioned a case she is aware of an individual who was granted asylum from a country and as soon as he applied for his passport, the first thing he did was book a flight to the country from which he claimed asylum. One of the big bugbears many people have is that taxpayers are being taken for a ride. This is probably an example of that. It probably does not come under the remit of the Minister's Department. It is probably more the remit of the Tánaiste's Department. However, would it be possible for us to consider dealing with those types of issues? Are there any policy measures we could take to deal with that type of scenario?