Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this Topical Issue. Reports in yesterday's edition of The Irish Times paint a very bleak picture of lax health and safety standards, poor hygiene levels and gross overcrowding across several asylum accommodation centres across the country. Serious questions need to be asked about the operation of these centres. Nobody can now deny that there is a major issue with the direct provision system.

Almost 5,000 people, 1,700 of whom are children, are kept in direct provision centres. They are given accommodation, three meals a day and €19.10 per week while they wait for their application for asylum to be heard by the High Court. They live in hostel-like accommodation in dispersed centres around the country, with families often housed in one room with faulty heating, and shower and toilet facilities are often shared. They are neither allowed to work nor to claim State benefits while they are resident in the centres. They are therefore prohibited from supporting themselves and paying taxes. They have no say over where they are accommodated and can be moved from one of the 35 centres across 16 counties without consultation and at a moment's notice.

Concerns about the centres have been raised by various groups, including UN committees and by former Ombudsman, Ms Emily O'Reilly, who said there were real fears for the safety of children living in direct provision centres and warned conditions were not suitable. A Northern Ireland High Court judge also recently pointed to "ample" evidence of physical and mental health issues among asylum seekers staying in direct provision accommodation.

As time is limited, I will share a personal experience of one of them. A few years ago I called to one of them in County Cork where I felt the conditions were inhumane. If this were happening to Irish people abroad, we would campaign rigorously on the issue. There is a fundamental issue here of respect and human rights. There is huge denial in terms these people's entitlements. The situation is not sustainable and I urge the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, to conduct an investigation and take whatever action is necessary. In 2010, when in opposition, the Minister said this system was unsustainable. While I know this information is not fresh, nevertheless we have a report and we need to pay strong attention to its details.

Patrick Nulty (Dublin West, Independent)
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I thank the Minister for being here in person to address this very pressing issue. The average length of stay of the residents in direct provision centres is 47 months and more than 500 people have been living in direct provision for seven years. I have a number of concerns I would like the Minister to address on this topic which has had considerable discussion on the public airwaves and elsewhere in recent days.

Staff, who were already employed in direct provision centres before the change in legislation, do not have to be Garda vetted despite working with vulnerable adults and children. RIA's child protection policy is too weak and wholly inadequate for a modern democratic State. Direct provision centres are not included in HIQA's remit as parents are present, but this cannot be viewed as a normal parenting environment given that parents have no control over who is present with their children in communal areas, including communal bathrooms. During a committee debate on 12 October 2010, several members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children called for HIQA inspections to be carried out in direct provision hostels following a visit by members of the committee to a direct provision centre.

Since the Children First guidelines were introduced in 2011, some 171 referrals concerning children in direct provision have been made. Parents are afraid to make complaints, as they do not trust the system or the State where they are located. They essentially have to complain to the Department which is responsible for accommodating them as well as assessing their asylum applications.

Will the Minister introduce a single procedure to decide on protection claims as a matter of urgency to reduce the amount of time people will have to spend in direct provision? Will he ensure that the new legislation complies with various human rights instruments, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which forbids discrimination against children on the basis of the status of their parents? This includes immigration status. What steps will the Minister take to address the serious child protection concerns in direct provision centres?

Has the Minister considered the recommendations by both national and international commentators on reviewing the direct provision system? These include UN reports and the report of the special rapporteur on child protection, Dr. Geoffrey Shannon.

Áine Collins (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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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.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputies for raising what is an important issue. The first thing to be highlighted about yesterday's report in The Irish Times, which has been missed, is that it shows that the inspection regime put in place by the Reception and Integration Agency, RIA, of my Department is working. Finding things which are wrong and having them fixed is the purpose of a good inspection regime. This is not in any way to seek to minimise the contents of the reports which of course are treated with the utmost seriousness by the staff of my Department who have the difficult job of operating the direct provision system.

The Reception and Integration Agency is responsible for the accommodation of 4,400 asylum seekers in 34 centres throughout 17 counties. When the Government took up office in March 2011 that number was 5,900. There has been a reduction of 25% over the past two and a half years. RIA centres are occupied on a 24 hour, seven day a week basis. The report in TheIrish Times was based on all inspection reports for seven specified centres over the course of 12 months and involved the release of 95 documents under freedom of information provisions. While, naturally, the worst elements of these reports were highlighted, in fact most inspection reports are positive. Again, this is not to minimise the content but to point out that they do not tell the full story.

Contractors have an important duty to comply with the terms of contracts they enter into with the Reception and Integration Agency. Some of the issues raised in these reports arise as a result of some residents unintentionally blocking fire exits, leaving children unattended, using rice cookers, etc. The responsibility to look after the children rests in fact with the parents who are in the centres and they have responsibilities in this area. I am not blaming the residents - far from it - but we should acknowledge that this is an ongoing challenge for staff working in the centres.

All 34 asylum accommodation centres in the direct provision system are subject to a minimum of three unannounced inspections a year, one by an independent company, QTS Limited, under contract to the RIA and two by RIA officials. In two serious cases 30-day notices were issued in which the contractor was told that the contract would be ended if problems were not rectified. In both cases the problems were addressed within 48 hours, requiring the lifting of the 30-day notice. Centres are also subject to inspection by fire officers and, in respect of food issues, to unannounced inspections by environmental health officers. It is incorrect to say that staff are not vetted; they are vetted. As part of their contractual obligations each centre must be inspected annually by a qualified and competent person with professional indemnity who must issue a certificate of compliance with regard to fire safety.

Reference was made to overcrowding. All RIA centres are subject to the requirements of the Housing Acts from 1996 to 2002. Where a family increases in size to the point that these requirements are no longer met, alternative suitable accommodation is offered. However, some families decline these offers and may decide to stay where they are until more spacious accommodation within an existing centre becomes available.

The RIA has a robust child protection system. The instances of children being left alone were dealt with immediately and education of parents and guardians with reference to their responsibilities is a key feature of any follow up. In all cases, the primary carers for children are their parents.

There was mention in the article of suicides being covered up. That is untrue. In the 14 years of RIA's existence only one person, a newly-arrived asylum seeker, can with certainty be said to have committed suicide and that happened while the individual was being detained in hospital. It did not happen in one of the centres.

Inspection templates have been changed and new training for staff took place earlier this year. All completed inspections carried out from 1 October 2013 will be published on the RIA's website. Transparency is important. By "completed" I mean the inclusion of responses by contractors to the report's findings. The RIA believes, as do I, that transparency is the key to maintaining standards. Residents have been assured time and again that complaints under the RIA house rules are legitimate and will not adversely affect their protection claims or lead to unwanted transfers. Any suggestions to the contrary are simply untrue and, unfortunately, may have the effect of dissuading residents from using the complaints mechanism in the way intended.

The direct provision system seeks to ensure that the accommodation and ancillary services provided by the State meet the requirements of asylum seekers while their applications for international protection are being processed. It is essentially a cashless system which provides them with full board accommodation free of utility or other costs. While accommodation services are provided by RIA, other State supports are provided by the appropriate Department or agency. For example, health services are provided through the HSE, social welfare supports through the Department of Social Protection and education through the Department of Education and Skills and so on. Except in exceptional circumstances-----

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The remainder of the reply will have to be included later.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Perhaps the Acting Chairman will let me finish this one sentence. Except in exceptional circumstances no asylum seeker is obliged to live in RIA accommodation. Some choose to live on their own resources or with friends or family. Down through the years many have not availed of direct provision. Essentially, the system is intended for those who arrive in the State seeking international protection and who are otherwise destitute.

Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for his reply. It is a short timeframe. Are we considering conducting an examination of the centres? Let us consider the matter from a Government point of view. Are we satisfied that what the Minister has said is the case? Has the Minister considered signing up to the reception directive? This guarantees people who are in these centres certain rights and standards of accommodation. In fairness, it is not too much to ask that we treat people with decency or give them standards in terms of accommodation and so on and so forth. In some member states asylum seekers are allowed to work if their application for asylum has not been dealt with in six months. If the system here militates against their application for asylum and adds to the difficulty in terms of direct provision, then we must deal with the anomaly that it creates. Has the Minister considered whether Ireland should sign up to the reception directive?

Patrick Nulty (Dublin West, Independent)
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Not every member of staff working in direct provision centres has been Garda vetted. The social welfare supports to which the Minister referred amount to less than €3 per day for an adult and less than €1.50 per day for a child. Many of the people living in these direct provision centres have come from experiences of torture, whether physical, mental, sexual or psychological. These people require help and support. They should have their assessment judged quickly and humanely. I put it to the Minister that if he had to live in one of these centres for a week he might not agree that the protections and facilities in place are adequate.

Áine Collins (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his response. The issue is about the time that people are in these centres. The old idea was that they would only be there for six months. It was to be a stop-gap to get them to a safe place when they arrived here quickly. It is about seeing how we can process their rights as quickly as possible. There is no way it should take between seven and nine years. That is a lifetime for a small child born here or who has come here, whatever the case may be.

We must go back to the legislation process to determine how to change it and ensure the loopholes currently in place and used are closed down - people are going back to court and delaying the process - in order that these people can be brought into a proper and normal environment where they can rear their children. Many of these people have children. The major issue is how quickly we can change the existing status and make the system far more efficient.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I will deal with some of the questions that have been raised. I was asked to look at it from a Government perspective. The reason there is an inspection system in place is in order that it is properly and adequately inspected and that where problems are identified, they are addressed.

That has been the consequence of the reports. Moreover, the issues highlighted in these reports, where problems exist, have been addressed and I wish to be clear in that regard.

While the direct provision system is not ideal and I do not pretend it is, it facilitates the State in providing a roof over the heads of those seeking asylum or seeking on other grounds to be allowed to remain in the State and to so do in a manner that facilitates resources being used economically in circumstances in which the State is in great financial difficulty. There is no open-ended pot of money available to deal with and address this issue, as there is not to deal with a broad range of issues that affect citizens of the State. More than 51,000 people have been accommodated in direct provision since early 2000 and, as I noted, 4,500 people are in the system at present. Since then, no asylum seeker has been left homeless by the failure of the State to provide basic shelter or to meet basic needs. It is of course to be expected that asylum seekers anywhere, if given a choice, would prefer to have independent accommodation, a right to welfare and work and so on instead of being restricted to a system of direct provision to meet their needs. To avoid misunderstanding, it should be noted that all European Union member states operate systems for dealing with asylum seekers which, in one form or another, greatly restrict their access to welfare, work or independent housing. The system in this State is at least on a par with, and often significantly better than, that in operation in many other states. I freely admit the system has its faults but it is misleading to characterise our system of providing for asylum seekers in any way as grossly inadequate or inappropriate. Within the financial constraints within which we must operate, I emphasise it guarantees that everyone claiming to be an asylum seeker who seeks to remain in the State is provided with a roof over his or her head if he or she is not in a position to provide it him or herself.

I accept Deputy Nulty's description of some of those who seek asylum. Some come from terrible background circumstances where they are genuine asylum applicants who are entitled to be granted refugee status or are entitled to be allowed to remain in the State on humanitarian grounds. However, some are economic migrants pretending to be asylum seekers. Moreover, some arrive in the State pretending to originate from countries where there is war and strife but on investigation of their cases, it turns out they come from somewhere entirely different from the state they claimed to have been from. I share the view that asylum seekers or those seeking to remain here should not be kept in the centres for the length of time that many are kept there at present. However, the difficulty is with the current legal system in which there is a myriad of different applications that can be made. They can take a substantial time and along each of the routes, when a decision is granted with which someone disagrees - I criticise no one for doing this - he or she can make applications for judicial review in the High Court. There now are High Court lists such that regardless of whether one is a genuine asylum seeker who believes one's case is being dealt with inappropriately or is an economic migrant masquerading as an asylum seeker, everyone knows that if one applies for a judicial review, it may take one or two years before one's case is heard and one can remain in this State.

In these circumstances, it is not possible to state that after six months, people should go back into the workforce in circumstances in which more than 400,000 people are employed in this State.

Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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What of the reception directive?

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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However, I will conclude by noting that my objective is to introduce reforming legislation to which I am committed. Unfortunately, due to the huge burdens imposed on the Attorney General's office, it has not yet been possible to finalise it. Under this legislation, which I expect to publish in 2014, in the case of anyone who makes application to be granted asylum in this State or, where he or she is not granted refugee status, seeks leave to remain or gives humanitarian reasons to stay, all of those applications can be heard in a single application. There then will be an independent appeals process that will ensure people feel their cases have been properly heard and dealt with at all levels and that there is no incentive to bring matters to the High Court.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Moreover, subsequent to the enactment of that legislation and while it may not be possible in all circumstances, I would like to achieve a position whereby the vast majority of such applications in which there are not unexpected complications or difficulties would be processed within six months. Consequently, in the case of people who arrive in the State and who have not an entitlement to remain, the integrity of Ireland's visa legislation would be maintained and they would be deported while in the case of those who are entitled to remain, they will be given the entitlement to remain without the delays that occur at present.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister.

Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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What about the reception directive? Will Ireland sign up to it?

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I believe that is a matter the Deputy must take up with the Minister later.

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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We cannot sign up to anything until we change our laws.

Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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There must be legislation first.