Mr. Sean Garvey:

I will deal with the question of the standards applied to the model of communal centres, which is now in the process of being replaced. One of the key components is that, according to the White Paper, there is a three to three and a half year timespan to those reforms being implemented, so, by any definition, people are still going to be living in congregated settings for at least three years.

On the standards, one of the key recommendations was that there would not be any more than three unrelated people in a room. It had been the case that it could have been more than that and, in a small number of cases, many more than that, but that is no longer the case. We have got confirmation from IPAS that there are now no examples of more than three unrelated people in a room.

In addition, there are specific requirements under the standards that the size and physical dimensions of a room should align with provisions in the Housing Act on the number of people per room. That is something we can look at. The advantage of having standards, from our perspective, is that there is a measure against which we can assess something. For example, if somebody says the room is too small for the number of people in it, we can get the dimensions and look at that, and see if that is the case or not. It gives clarity for us and an objective standard against which something can be measured.

We do not have a role in overseeing the rollout of standards per sebut if a person has a complaint that would fall under the standards issue, we can pursue it on that basis. Again, as the changes in this sector roll out, we have not been getting many complaints on those lines. However, where we have, they are presented to us by way of transfer. If there is a family of four in one room, that family will generally seek to move to a different centre where there is more appropriate accommodation, and that is the mechanism under which we would receive most complaints of that nature.