I propose to take Questions Nos. 223 to 227, inclusive, together.
The Reception & Integration Agency (RIA), an operational unit of the Irish Naturalisation & Immigration Service (INIS) of my Department, is responsible for the accommodation of asylum seekers under the Direct Provision system. As of 7 October, 2012, RIA is accommodating 4,955 persons in 36 accommodation centres located in 17 counties throughout the country. Details of all of these centres are available on its website - www.ria.gov.ie. I am regularly briefed and kept informed on all matters relating to immigration and asylum including the Direct Provision System as well as, of course, the linked matters of finance and budgets.
The matter raised by the Deputy centres around the Value for Money Report and Policy Review - Asylum Seeker Accommodation Programme, published in 2010, which was laid before the Oireachtas and is available on the Oireachtas website and RIA's website www.ria.gov.ie . In this report, the VFM group accepted that it is not possible for RIA to achieve 100% occupancy of its accommodation - due to family configuration, sickness requiring isolation, and so on - and recommended that RIA strive for an occupancy rate of 90% or less of its available capacity. This is a guideline and at any point in time spare capacities can be above or below this figure. It is therefore an incorrect premise that capacity above 10% at a particular point in time is an 'excess' which can be quantified in monetary terms.
There are three reasons for this. Firstly, the ebb and flow of asylum seekers requiring RIA accommodation is such that it is impossible to predict with 100% certainty that the numbers requiring accommodation will result in a spare capacity of exactly 10% or less at any one point.
Secondly, contracts which RIA has with service providers are deliberately 'staggered' throughout the year to account for this ebb and flow. Indeed, generally contracts are now for between 12 and 18 months in duration and this allows RIA to engage or disengage from contracts as required having regard to current accommodation needs. Given the current downward trend in asylum seekers requiring accommodation, when a contract comes up for renewal a decision has to be made to seek to reduce its capacity, including adjusting capacity across a group of related centres, or to close it. RIA makes every effort to keep family centres open, preferring instead to reduce contracted capacities. But a reduction of capacity by, say, 15% does not mean a commensurate reduction in cost and the closure of a centre may be the only economic option for the contractor. It is simply not possible, taking into account the logistics involved in either reducing capacities or closing centres, to achieve a spare capacity of 10% at all times. This can only be achieved over a period of time taking into account projected fluctuations in demand.
Thirdly, the recommendation in this respect was one of a number of inter-linked recommendations. Among the recommendations of the VFM report was the introduction of a mix of ‘contracts for capacity’ and ‘contracts for availability and occupancy’ as well as a 'more open' tendering system in respect of the commercially owned and operated centres in the RIA portfolio. Preparatory work has begun on devising a more open tendering process for the commercially owned centres which could only have taken place following the recent completion of the tender competition for the management of RIA's seven State owned centres. This will be a difficult and complex exercise as the tender process will have to take account of "non-money" issues such as access to social, educational and health services as well as adherence to long standing Government policy on dispersal of asylum seekers throughout the country so that no one region is disproportionately burdened in relation to service provision, as well as a recognition that other State agencies may have already committed resources in a particular region or area.
An illustration of the complexities involved in taking actions to achieve the recommendations of the VFM report is the recent decision by RIA to close down the Lisbrook centre in Galway city. This operation was in progress when I received a number of representations, including from the Deputy’s own party on the matter. I instructed that the operation be suspended until the decision had been reviewed. The review concluded that the closure was necessary, particularly in view of the need to reduce bed capacity in RIA centres thereby reducing expenditure. This decision, of course, is entirely in keeping with the recommendation of the Value for Money Report and will yield a cost reduction of approximately €2 million.
In the period 2009 (when significant downsizing of the RIA portfolio began) to date, a total of 23 centres have been closed. When Lisbrook House is closed in a few weeks, that will bring the number up to 24 and will have yielded an overall reduction in capacity of 2,671. Arising from these closures and reductions in capacity, as well as other cost saving measures introduced by RIA, the cumulative savings overall on the Direct Provision system from the end of 2008 to the end of 2012 will amount to over €67 million.
Since August 2012, RIA has closed one centre - Viking Lodge in Dublin 8 (55 bed spaces) and is currently in the process of closing Lisbrook House in Galway City (284 bed spaces). Taking the closures indicated above as well as reductions in capacities on other contracts into account, RIA expects to have a capacity of 5,460 at 31 December, 2012. Taking current occupancies rates as a base, this would represent a spare capacity of 9.2%, well within the VFM recommendations.
