Ms Oonagh Buckley:

As I mentioned in the opening statement, we have been working since September 2020 on implementation of the new system. A number of the recommendations have been already put into place. For example, the 12-month access to the labour market has been put in place such that the a permit is now valid for 12 months rather than six and it can be secured after six months and so forth. We have done the things that were low-hanging fruit, if I can use that phrase. We also had a lengthy but ultimately quite successful engagement with the banking industry to make sure that asylum seekers could open bank accounts. We are working hard with our colleagues in the Department of Transport to make sure that asylum seekers can lawfully access driver's licences, which would be great.

I cannot understate the fact that the pandemic has made our lives very difficult, largely because it overlaid a system that was more or less paper based and very poorly computerised. Our challenge is to make sure that over the course of next year in particular, we put in place the building blocks to move the system on to a less paper-based, or paperless, system. We will start with the tribunal and work that backwards into the IPO.

Then there is the second piece, which Mr. Delaney is working hard to implement. We have restructured the way decisions are taken by the staff. There was quite a complex procedure whereby we would hire a lawyer. The lawyer went in to do the interview. That would come back in and land on the desk of a civil servant for final recommendation. Those files would move between various levels of civil servant. We have removed several of those layers. That should significantly improve things. We are now asking our staff to do the job directly that we had farmed out to lawyers. They are working on some of our less challenging files although these are cases that are very challenging for the individuals involved. These would be cases where we would likely grant permission because of the country that the person comes from. Once they have gained confidence in that system, we will be able to use them on a broader range of decisions. That change alone has expanded our capacity and will do significantly over the next year.

Sometimes it can be hard to effect change in a Department among civil servants but the staff have embraced this change and it is really great that they are doing so.