Mr. Brian Collins:

Regarding the reference to HIQA, we understand that the authority has been given the power to inspect direct provision centres proper. However, a lot of people are living in emergency accommodation including in hotels and bed and breakfast establishments but HIQA is not going to be given the power to inspect those premises, as far as we understand. The regulations are being prepared at the moment. For us, that is quite a big gap and is quite concerning given the number of people that live in emergency accommodation. That is on the international protection side of things but it also applies to temporary protection beneficiaries. They are living in over 500 settings across the country at the moment and we would like to see HIQA having the power to inspect those. Obviously there would be resource implications for that but we are hearing lots of anecdotal reports of serious problems with accommodation, a lack of a clear complaints mechanism and difficulties with getting a response when complaints are made, due to the scale of the number of places where people are living.