Dear Cathaoirleach,

Thank you and the Committee for the invitation to talk to you today. I welcome the opportunity to tell you about the work of my Office in the sector and to discuss any particular interests or concerns as the Committee may like to raise with me.

As you will know, each year since my remit over the Direct Provision sector was confirmed in April 2017 I have published a Commentary on the work of my Office in the sector.  I discussed my Commentaries for 2017 and 2018 at my appearance on 25 September 2019 before the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality.

My Office’s Outreach Programme

You will recall from that previous appearance that I agreed to that Committee’s suggestion for me to include unannounced visits in the scope of my Office’s Outreach Programme of visits to centres where we felt such an approach was appropriate.  My Outreach team undertook a small number of such visits in the latter part of 2019, two of which I discussed in my Commentary for that year.  The team found the unannounced visits were a very valuable mechanism for following up on cases where our normal post-visit engagement (...)