'People were kept safe': Dept of Justice defends direct provision Covid strategy

Lucky Khanbule (MASI) with Safra Banu, Azwar Fuard & Mariyam Fuard as they end their 3 day hunger strike and celebrate the news by Minister Helen McEntee that the residents of the Skellig Star DP Centre will be moved to more suitable Centres from next week. Picture: Alan Landers.

The Department of Justice’s handling of Covid-19 with regard to direct provision “worked, by and large”, according to its chief.

Secretary General Oonagh McPhillips, one of only two female heads of department in Ireland, told the Public Accounts Committee at its meeting this evening that “the proof in the pudding is that people were kept safe”.

Under questioning from committee vice-chair Catherine Murphy with regard to a large outbreak of Covid at the Skellig Star Hotel in Cahersiveen in March, Ms McPhillips said it was “very unfortunate” for the people in the system who had gotten sick, but added that “no one got very seriously ill”.

“A lot of very good work was done,” she said with regard to the provision of 1,850 temporary beds to centres across the country in order to guarantee housing for all asylum seekers during the pandemic.

She said the Department had been “very worried” that it wouldn’t be in a position to accommodate everyone.

Miscommunication questions

Regarding the question of miscommunication between the HSE and the Department, which was blamed for the outbreak which resulted in Cahersiveen after residents were moved overnight from a hotel in Dublin where they had shared space with a confirmed case from Italy, she said that “as the pandemic went on communications did improve”.

This had led to the implementation of a system of early warnings with regard to potential miscommunication, she said.

Responsibility for the management of direct provision centres and other asylum seeker accommodation has now passed to the revamped Department of Children, as of October 14. However the asylum process itself remains under the Department of Justice’s aegis.

Ms McPhillips confirmed that €35 million is currently being spent on the provision of emergency accommodation to asylum seekers across the State per year.

Her departmental colleague Oonagh Buckley admitted that reliance on such temporary accommodation is “sub-optimal”, but argued that conditions in direct provision centres themselves are greatly improved.

Social media monitoring

With regard to her Department’s monitoring of its mentions in the media, Ms McPhillips said that she doesn’t believe it “takes much time to monitor tweets”.

She defended such monitoring, which is carried out - though not always outsourced - by all Government departments, as being normal. “Any company in the world would be interested in what people are saying about them on social media,” she said. The Department has had one of the highest budgets for such monitoring - €95,192 - since 2017.

Separately, Ms McPhillips said that construction on the new national Forensic Science Laboratory began in March and is “well under way” despite the impact of Covid on construction services during the country’s initial lockdown.

She stated also that the money seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau must be held in abeyance for a period of seven years following its seizure.

Last year the CAB seized assets stemming from the proceeds of criminality worth €65 million, €53 million of which resulted from a freezing order placed over certain cryptocurrency cash. Ms McPhillips said she hoped, and is actively looking to see, if that timeframe “can be reduced at all”.