Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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97. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the direct provision centres that are State and privately run by county, in tabular form; the cost of each State run centre in 2016; the projected cost of same in 2017; the cost to the State of each privately run centre in 2016; the projected cost of same in 2017; the number of residents in each centre on 30 Jun 2017 or the latest date available; the number of persons in each direct provision centre for one year or less, one year to two years, two to three years, three to four years, four to five years and more than five years; the corresponding figure for the same date in 2016; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33005/17]

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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All centres, whether State-owned or privately owned are operated by commercial companies.

The information requested by the Deputy in relation to details of centre location, contractor and occupancy is set out in the table:

Contractors for Accommodation Centres

Extensive and detailed information on the amount paid by my Department to each company contracted to provide direct provision accommodation every year up to and including 2014 can be found on the RIA website www.ria.gov.ie under the 'Contract Values' section of the website. This is in accordance with the Reception & Integration Agency's policy on disclosure of financial information which was agreed with the Office of the Information Commissioner. The Deputy will appreciate that it is not appropriate to provide values for current contracts entered into by my Department. Negotiations take place with a number of commercial entities on an ongoing basis with a clear focus on achieving the best value for money in respect of each contract. It is not in the interests of yielding best value for the taxpayer that details of current individual contracts are made available to other commercial bodies who are, or may be in the future, engaged in these negotiations.

Details of the duration of stay of residents as of July 2017 in each accommodation centre and the comparative figure from May 2016 are listed in the following table. It should be noted that since May 2016, 3 direct provision accommodation centres (one each in Dublin, Carrick on Suir and Limerick) have been closed.

The totals shown above mask a considerable churn in the figures in the period in question. For example in 2016 alone, 1,960 persons left State provided accommodation and 1,685 persons took up the offer of State provided accommodation having made an application for international protection.

It should be further noted that the number of persons in State provided accommodation for more than five years continued to fall from 883 in May of 2016 to 442 in July of 2017. This is further evidence of the increased processing of applications by the International Protection Office and the International Protection Appeals Tribunal.

Additional comprehensive statistics in relation to the services provided by the Reception and Integration Agency are available on www.ria.gov.ie.