Dr. John Lannon:

I would not disagree with Mr. Henderson's assessment. For me, the starting point is always that we have responsibilities under international legal instruments with regard to providing the opportunity for people to seek asylum. We look at instruments such as the reception conditions directive at EU level under which we have obligations regarding what we do.

In terms of what Mr. Henderson was saying, I guess we could do more, but we are doing what we can with very limited funding for the NGO sector. We are absolutely stretched when it comes to trying to do what we are doing. In my opening statement, I mentioned a whole list of areas that we are working in or trying to work in at Doras. We are trying to do that on a shoestring.

The State has a responsibility here, whether it is in terms of ensuring that there is funding at local and community level for initiatives that are appropriate or in terms of ensuring that there is proper and appropriate information for people so that we do not, for example, have far right elements coming in and spreading misinformation and lies in relation to immigration. We need to ensure that we are out in front of that in terms of getting the right information to people.

Mr. Henderson mentioned the national integration strategy. There are deficiencies in that. Taking the example of Limerick, where there is a local integration strategy, we have an integration working group. Under that, there are a number of elements, including a child and family support network. There is a lot of work that is being done at a local level to be proactive. In fact, we, as an organisation, were set up at the same time as direct provision was introduced around 21 years ago. We have maintained the work that we are doing to try to ensure that what the Deputy is speaking about in terms of getting the information out and educating people is happening in Limerick. However, I do accept that we have a lot more do to.