Results 1-20 of 66 for "direct provision" segment:7652943

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Ms Oonagh Buckley: That is a very valid question. As I have made clear from the start of our presentation, emergency accommodation is not of the same standard as the direct provision centres. We cannot impose the standards we require of direct provision providers on hotels and guest houses, which is where emergency accommodation is provided. We are trying to make sure, therefore, that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Ms Oonagh Buckley: It is certainly a position in which we do not want to find ourselves. That is why we are working hard to move people with the right to remain out of our direct provision centres. If they were not in the direct provision centres, we would be able to accommodate the people who are in emergency provision.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Niall Ó Donnghaile: On the statement about the upcoming new standards for newly acquired direct provision centres, will Ms Buckley put a figure on the number of current direct provision centres which are not meeting the newly defined standards for independent living, cooking facilities and perhaps other issues? I will accept an approximate figure. Does Ms Buckley know how many centres the Department will have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Ms Oonagh Buckley: If we are not able to achieve the opening of direct provision centres, we will see more people going into emergency accommodation because we have no other way of providing them with a roof over their head. We cannot say what the numbers would be because it is dependent on demand and how many people come into the State seeking asylum or international protection and how...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire: ...before us. This is a very important part of the committee's valuable engagement on this matter in recent weeks. I am sure the officials have been following our hearings. I reiterate my view that direct provision has lost the confidence of the residents and the Irish people. The committee's responsibility now is to formulate a proposal in our report that provides a comprehensive and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Ms Oonagh Buckley: I do not have a figure for the average time spent in emergency accommodatioin. We try to move people through the system as quickly as possible and into a direct provision centre. There are individuals who have been in emergency accommodation for upwards of nine months, which is very unfortunate. Part of our issue is we have approximately 730 people who have the right to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Ms Oonagh Buckley: The use of emergency accommodation is sub-optimal. It is worse than direct provision. For all naysaying about direct provision, it allows us to provide public services in a more co-ordinated way to a group of people in a group setting. These are people who tend to have high levels of needs because of some of the circumstances from which they have come. The use of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Ms Carol Baxter: A case was taken. There are two categories, one of which is people who seek readmission into direct provision having left direct provision. There can be cases taken around readmission. Until September of last year, however, we had not turned away an initial applicant and that happened then happened over two weekends when we did not have accommodation to offer to people.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Ms Oonagh Buckley: It does not matter what we call it. I know, as another member mentioned, that people have lost any faith in the term "direct provision". That is the feedback I get from my friends and family. I was struck, in reading the submissions to the committee from the NGOs, that all of them agree that accommodation must be provided and State services offered, at least for a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

...commercial sensitivities. Thankfully, what happened in Moville and Rooskey is extremely rare. Generally speaking, as the Deputy is probably aware, there can be an initial push-back but once the direct provision centre opens, it all dies away. As the Deputy rightly points out, there is not a day's trouble from the vast majority of people. When I visited Mosney, I asked if there was much...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Ms Oonagh Buckley: It is two different things. We cannot impose direct provision standards on private hotel owners. What we can say, in circumstances where there is a clear breach of what we anticipate as being the requirements of someone providing emergency accommodation, is that we will withdraw from using that hotel or facility. We believe that it is certainly possible for these...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Martin Conway: ...in the situation where an emergency accommodation structure is in place. What are the financial arrangements between RIA and the providers of these emergency accommodation beds? I do not mean the direct provision beds but the emergency accommodation beds. What protocols are in place to ensure basis standards in the emergency accommodation? I am trying to understand how the arrangements...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Ms Oonagh Buckley: In general, we believe it is best that we try to move children who are within the span where they require school places into direct provision centres as quickly as possible in order that they will be in a more long-term arrangement where they can be placed in schools. In the initial phases when we had to put families in emergency accommodation, some ad hocarrangements...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

...their International Protection Office, IPO, interviews. At the instigation of the Minister, we have instituted a pilot with the IPO which allows interviews to be held closer to the residents of the direct provision system. An initial outing was held in our office in Tipperary town. It worked extremely successively, save that it was in Tipperary town, when it needed to be closer to our...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

...provide their own food. They do not have the on-site shop. By the middle of next year, we aim to have completed the procurement process and achieved the new standards across the entire complex of direct provision centres, that is, existing centres and new ones that may come on stream through the procurement process. We obviously need additional direct provision centres to come on stream...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Martin Conway: ...the presentation from RIA. In some centres, children are accepted into the local national school, but the support and services made available are very limited. In other situations, children from direct provision centres are not accepted into the local primary schools. The protocol should be that local primary schools are obliged to take children from direct provision centres and should...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire: ...attitude and referred to the existence of a culture of disbelief. He told the committee that when the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection started to plan for the increases in the direct provision allowance, an official in the Department of Justice and Equality who was asked to offer a comment or express views began by stating they are all working anyway. A few other...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed)

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Jack Chambers: Does Ms Buckley accept that the Department has one set of standards for direct provision centres and less governance control over emergency accommodation?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Direct Provision and the International Protection Application Process: Discussion (Resumed) (19 Jun 2019)

Jack Chambers: Is Ms Buckley satisfied that every child in a direct provision centre has access to education services?