Áine Collins (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending to address this issue. We have 4,600 asylum seekers in direct provision, costing the State €62 million a year in 34 centres around the country. I am concerned about recent reports which appeared in a newspaper on Monday which paint a very grim picture of some of these centres. As I understand it, each centre is inspected three times a year. The Refugee and Integration Agency carries out these inspections and some are outsourced to QTS Limited, which is a private company based in Galway.

Part of the problem is that some people are living in direct provision for an average of three years and eight months, with many living in these conditions for up to seven years. Initially it was envisaged that they would only be living in direct provision for six months.

The legislation governing asylum is outdated and there appear to be many avenues to delay decisions for asylum seekers. I recognise the enormous work the Minister has done in trying to speed up the process for many people. As a result we now have far fewer asylum centres - down from 62 to 34.

I acknowledge there has been talk of new legislation with an immigration and refugee Bill to be published which might address some of these matters. How does the Minister foresee the current problems being resolved? As mentioned earlier, currently there are 4,600 people claiming asylum of which one third are children. One of the issues in the report was that many of these children are being minded by older children and are unsupervised in the centres. This is of concern to all of us from a health and safety perspective and for many other reasons. I understand there is an average of approximately 1,000 new entrants every year.

See this speech in context