Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have very little time in which to speak, but everything that needed to be said has been said in an incredibly eloquent way by colleagues. The issues that have been raised include access to heating, food, water, transport, basic health and basic education. These are fundamentals for any society and when anyone in society is not getting them, it is a disgrace to all of us. Yet that is what is happening to people in direct provision, in Clare and Galway as well as in the Skellig Star facility. Can the Minister guarantee not just that people will be moved but that there will be no more contracts signed with private providers for direct provision centres? Giving a commitment not to sign a single new contract would set a timeline and give the urgency that is needed to address the situation. I remind the Minister that the same and worse issues apply to the asylum detention centres we are funding in Libya and across the developing world. They are part of the same shameful architecture of exploitation.