Ms Sue Windle:

I will add something on the Afghan admission programme, AAP. When the takeover by the Taliban happened and the Irish Government allowed this access for Afghans, the process of them applying to get their family members was incredibly difficult. It involved a 40-page document. It was very convoluted, even for us old hands who are able to do applications. What we are finding now is that for people who applied for the AAP, obviously out of fear and concern for their family, when at the time it was just a case of "Let us get them in and get the applications done", things have changed. In the time it took for those families to arrive, people's circumstances - specifically the sponsors' circumstances - have changed. They may have lost their job or had to move to a smaller house. Now we have a situation where sponsors are responsible for the welfare of maybe two or three family members but the money is not there. The housing is not there or there are not enough beds. If you look at the application process, you could not blame anyone for applying. At the time, a terrorist organisation had taken over and they wanted to bring their families in safely. Now, because they have signed up to this agreement whereby they are not entitled to any form of social welfare or housing benefits, we have people coming to us who have no English and no PPS number and cannot get a job. Everything is against them. That was maybe the shortsightedness of the programme, that the aftercare thought did not go into it. It is left to organisations like ourselves to try to pick up the pieces and advocate and say to the Department that it said they could not have social welfare, but in this instance they are not going to eat otherwise. It is about bringing it back to that fight. There are a lot of factors.

It is the same with family reunification. We are on year two. A lot of families are applying for their spouses and children to come in. We are going into year two because the staffing is not there in the Department to process these applications. In the interim, other things have happened. Pregnancies have occurred and the whole application process goes back then. Again, you have the mental health of the sponsor to think about, who is worrying about the immediate safety of their family. That process just goes on and on and on. It is really difficult. I am dealing with a lady at the moment who is waiting for her citizenship application to come through. Sadly, she has been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer but she cannot travel to see her mother because she is waiting for her citizenship and now there has been a delay on that. We do not know. It could be months. There is a myriad of stuff in terms of immigration that is really difficult for people to process. That is what we are dealing with on the ground as well.