of due publicity(15), having been presented two applications by the following organizations: Amnesty International - Portugal - and APAV - Portuguese Association for Victim Support. Also during 2014, the Advisory Council met on December 4th to evaluate the applications submitted (in this meeting it was also presented the annual plan of activities for 2015). The procedure to choose the two NGO’s was concluded in a meeting held on January 29th 2015. 1.3.2. The Steering Committee The Steering Committee is composed of 3 persons: an Ombudsman’s Cabinet member, and the coordinators of the thematic units 5 and 6. This committee is responsible for assisting the NPM in the development of its activity, namely executing the annual plan of approved by the NPM, ensuring the realization of visits to places of detention, through the visitors team(16) and formulating the proposals for recommendations. As will be described below, all the visits were attended at least by one of the members of this committee. 1.3.3. The Visitors Team The Visitors Team is comprised, primarily, by 9 staff members of the Ombudsman’s office(17) specially appointed for that purpose, with the primary task of conducting visits and the preparation of the respective reports(18). To the achieve that, the NPM may also request the participation of other staff members of the Ombudsman’s office, as well as experts with technical and scientific knowledge appropriate to the purpose of each visit or taking into consideration the characteristics of the places to visit. Bearing this purpose in mind the visitors team has the cooperation of professional bodies – Lawyers, Physicians, and Psychologists – providing a list of experts distributed through the country’s following regions: the North, the Central region, the South and the autonomous regions of Azores and Madeira. In one of the visits made in 2014 it was possible to have the participation of a medical expert(19). (15)  Cf. Notice No. 10078/2014 published in the Official Journal, Series II, No. 173, September 9th. (16)  Cf, article 9, EMNP Regulation. (17)  Benefiting the NPM with their vast experience regarding the realization of visits and effective knowledge of Portuguese reality with regard to places of detention. (18)  Cf. article 10, EMNP Regulation. (19)  Cf. infra visit No. 11-2014. | 11