Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 October 2025
427. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration to detail, per venue and by county, the number of beds for accommodating international protection applicants which the State has contracted for in each month of 2025 to date, and the corresponding occupancy number for each of those venues for each month listed, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53437/25]
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.
Since 2024, once a centre is in operation, IPAS has not published details of the capacity or occupancy of our accommodation centres.
This is due to both safety and security concerns, and to protect the privacy of international protection (IP) applicants in line with legal obligations under the International Protection Act 2015. As such, specific tables of occupancy by centre can't be provided.
For the Deputy's information, the number of IPAS centres and residents per local electoral area, is set out in the table at the link below. Data is available from the end of 2024, and up to September 2025.
Over 45,000 people claimed IP from 2022 to 2024, exceeding the total number claiming in the preceding 16 years, placing 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 in 2025, 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 international protection processing system itself. Reforming and speeding up processing of applications should over time help to reduce the scale of the demand for accommodation.
IPAS releases weekly statistics in relation to IP applicants accommodated by IPAS. This includes a per county breakdown of where IP applicants are residing and a wide range of other details including gender and nationality.
These statistics are located on the Gov.ie website:
www.gov.ie/en/international-protection-accommodation-services-ipas/publications/facts-and-figures/
