Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 160: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his attention has been drawn to or if he will inquire, of the Reception and Integration Agency, the details of the case of a person (details supplied); the steps he will take to ensure that warning letters, when withdrawn, are deleted from a resident's file; when the person will be returned to the centre; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16780/08]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) is responsible for the accommodation of asylum seekers in accordance with the Government policy of direct provision and dispersal. The RIA's portfolio of accommodation comprises 63 centres across 22 counties with over 6,850 residents at present.

The day to day operation of centres is governed by House Rules and Procedures, incorporating a Complaints Procedure, which clearly outline the obligations placed both on residents and centre management. These rules were agreed in 2002 and are the subject of an ongoing review involving, inter alia, RIA, representatives of centre managers, the Refugee Information Services and the Irish Refugee Council. This review group is expected to conclude its deliberations within the next few months.

I am informed by RIA that this case has been, and is being, dealt with in the context of the aforementioned House Rules.

A distinction needs to be drawn between the withdrawn warning letter referred to in the question, and the decision made to transfer the individual concerned to another centre.

In relation to the first matter, following correspondence to the RIA from the relevant centre manager about the conduct of a party at the centre involving, inter alia, excessive late night noise, a warning letter issued from RIA to a number of residents, including the individual referred to by the Deputy. It was subsequently noted that a procedural error had taken place and the warning letters were withdrawn. The difficulty in physically deleting the correspondence from the file is that it is constantly referred to by the person himself and by various support groups acting on his behalf and, administratively, it would be impossible to deal properly with said representations in the absence of the correspondence. It is important to stress that the effect of the withdrawal is to negate the original warning letter and no adverse conclusions can be drawn in relation to any of the recipients of the warning letters.

The subsequent decision to transfer this person arose from an incident unrelated to the one referred to above and where RIA accepted that a clear and present requirement to effect the transfer arose. On the basis of the information to hand, RIA does not intend to send the person back to his original centre.

It should be noted that the above incidents have been the subject of many representations from the residents' committee in the centre, assisted by support groups such as Integrating Ireland. It is not in the interests of RIA, centre management or the residents themselves that any resident is treated unfairly and RIA is satisfied that fair procedures have been applied in this case.