Mr. Peter Tyndall:

I thank the Cathaoirleach for the invitation to appear before the committee. As he pointed out, the committee was very influential in the decision to ensure that my office had jurisdiction over complaints from residents in direct provision. As a consequence, it is very useful to be able to report back to the committee on our work over the past year. I will not read out my opening statement in full as I believe members have had an opportunity to see it. I will just draw out a couple of principal points, if I might.

At the last meeting of the committee I attended, when the previous update on direct provision was considered, the committee was very anxious that my staff and I should engage in unannounced visits. At that time, we agreed to do so. The potential for any visits has been severely limited because of Covid. That is one of the major themes of the report. We did, however, begin the process of unannounced visiting and we will continue with it once it becomes possible for us to extend the number of visits we undertake to direct provision centres and to people staying in emergency accommodation, which has been one of the major themes we have had to address in the course of the last year.

The pandemic had a major impact on our ability to visit centres. I have always said to the committee that we recognise that it would not be terribly effective to expect people to come to us with their complaints. Although we have implemented a series of measures to enable people in centres to bring their complaints to us during the pandemic, there has been a fall in the number of complaints during the year. We are convinced that this is directly linked to our capacity to visit centres. People are sometimes much more willing to come and speak to us in person. Even though we have made arrangements for Zoom calls and the like, the take-up has been lower. We are very anxious to get back on the road again and we will do so at the earliest possible opportunity.

The other things to highlight have been the change to a new Department and the White Paper on the ending of the direct provision system. We were not entirely persuaded by the findings of the review of direct provision in respect of housing accommodation. We made that quite clear when we had the opportunity to meet with Ministers to discuss the proposals. The proposals in the current White Paper are more realistic. We are hopeful that we will see a gradual transition to a system of own-door accommodation. It is a point the committee will have heard me make on more than one occasion that it is very important that people should not be sharing accommodation with people to whom they are not related or with whom they have no other links. The issue for all of us will be to ensure that happens with sufficient pace so that, first, we can see an end to the use of emergency accommodation and a transition away from the direct provision centres with the fewest self-contained facilities and, eventually, a move away from direct provision altogether over a period that is not too lengthy.

Another point discussed as part of all of this is the lack of access to any oversight of the administration of the international protection process. It is entirely proper that decisions about granting or not granting citizenship are executive matters. They are not matters of administration, but the administration of the system has proved a source of great frustration to many people who have been seeking asylum or refugee status. I am encouraged that the proposal is now there so that my office should be able, as is the case with ombudsman offices across Europe and more widely, to look at the administration of the protection system. Those were the points I wanted to highlight and I am happy to take questions.