Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

293. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the rationale that was used by his Department in 2000 when the decision was taken to commence the direct provision system; if he will detail and supply the studies, risk assessments and policy deliberations and so on that were conducted by his Department at the time (details supplied); the advice that the Government relied upon to support the decision to set-up and extend the direct provision system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27052/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy will be aware, responsibility for the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) and the International Protection Procurement Service (IPPS) transferred to my Department on 14 October 2020. However, the Government decision to commence Direct Provision dates back to 1999. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform had responsibility at that time for the international protection process in Ireland and in 2001 set up an internal agency called the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) to administer the Direct Provision system.

The system of Direct Provision of accommodation and related services came about as a result of an increasing number of international protection applicants arriving into the State in 1999. Prior to this, asylum seekers were treated as homeless under the structures then in place. These proved unsuited to the situation facing Ireland in 1999 and subsequent years, when the number of applicants for international protection arriving in Ireland increased significantly. A total of 7,724 applications were received in 1999 and a further 10,938 in the following year. Of these, most presented themselves in Dublin. The homeless service of the then Eastern Health Board could not cope and there was a serious prospect of widespread homelessness among applicants.

In response, the then Minister for Justice, John O'Donoghue T.D., chaired a cross-departmental group to examine the issue. From this, the Directorate for Asylum Support Services (DASS), under the aegis of the then Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, was established in November 1999 to co-ordinate the scheme of dispersal and Direct Provision for asylum seekers. DASS was subsequently replaced by the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) on 2 April, 2001.  It had as a core principle that applicants would be located in centres across Ireland rather than concentrated in Dublin.

The Direct Provision system did not relate only to the Department of Justice.  It was set up as a whole of Government approach to provide services to arriving International Protection applicants. The Government made a decision that protection applicants could access services, such as health and education, through the existing mainstream services.

My Department is not aware of any academic research that was carried out at the time of commencement.  Rather, a number of working groups were established to make recommendations on the improvement of the system in subsequent years, notably the 2015 McMahon Working Group and report, and most recently the report of the Catherine Day Advisory Group, which informed the White Paper to End Direct Provision and to Establish a New International Protection Support Service.

As the Deputy is aware, the Government is committed to ending the current system of Direct Provision and to replace it with a new International Protection policy, centred on a not-for-profit approach. Last year, I published ‘A White Paper to End Direct Provision and to Establish a New International Protection Support Service’, which sets out how a replacement to the Direct Provision system will be structured and the steps to achieving it.