Dr. Niall Muldoon:

The other example that always stood out for me in regard to direct provision is a young mother with an infant baby had to go outside onto the street to go into the kitchen at 3 a.m. to use a microwave to heat the milk for the child. What does that do to the child? What does that do to the mother? What is this safety wise? All sorts of things went on. There are so many different types of accommodations being set up. They are run in different ways and different standards because we have not got a regulation set up for it. Some are doing an excellent job and some of them are a good place to be in the circumstances. From our point of view, we as a nation have agreed to provide through the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC, all rights to all children on our island. We need to do that consistently, no matter who they are, where they come from or how long they are here. That is our commitment. That is why we want to put that into domestic law so that there is no question that this is our commitment. We are not doing that all the time. There will always be slips, but these are things we could plan. We are hiring people and paying them millions of euros to do these things. We need to follow through and ask if they are doing this right and if they are providing the best possible service for these children. That is not happening. We are asking: are they providing the beds? All they want to know is how many people they can take in. They do not ask if it is one, two or three rooms. The complaints system within that is poor as well, which is a right, as Ms Ward referenced, as is the access to justice. We know families in there are scared to say anything about something that has gone wrong. That is a really concerning piece. There is a lot of work to be done in that area.