Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 September 2025
707. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration the current number of IPAS centres and residents per local electoral area; the corresponding figures in 2020 and 2024, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51757/25]
View answerThe State is currently accommodating almost 33,000 people in over 320 International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) centres around the country, 9,500 of whom are children.
The data requested is set out in the tables attached.
The Department receives regular offers of accommodation from external commercial providers and does not predetermine their geographical location. All offers of international protection (IP) accommodation are reviewed by the Department under a standard appraisal procedure.
From 2022 to the end of 2024, there was a sudden and sustained increase in numbers of people applying for IP in Ireland. This increase happened at the same time as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the EU Temporary Protection Directive, which saw over 114,000 people from Ukraine come to Ireland.
Over 45,000 people claimed IP from 2022 to 2024, exceeding the total number claiming in the preceding 16 years (from 2006 to 2021 - 44,000), indicating the immediacy and scale of the challenge.
These changes placed profound and sustained pressure on the State’s responsibility to source viable accommodation for new arrivals over the last three years.
As we respond to changing trends, and work toward a more stable and sustainable accommodation system in this sector, accommodation is being developed and delivered through a range of channels, with a focus on developing more State-owned accommodation.
This is part of wider reform of the IP processing system itself.
Reforming and speeding up processing of applications should also serve over time to reduce the scale of the demand for IP accommodation.
