Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 July 2025
66. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration further to Parliamentary Question No. 1082 of 10 June 2025, the urgent steps he is taking to end the policy of not offering accommodation to international protection applicants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36345/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraIreland is currently accommodating almost 33,000 people seeking international protection in over 320 International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) centres around the country.
Due to severe shortages of accommodation over recent years, the State was unable to offer accommodation to all people seeking international protection since 2024, and there are currently 2,577 people awaiting an offer of accommodation.
Our teams manage a limited supply of accommodation, prioritising people with families or who have specific health needs or other vulnerabilities. This means that single male applicants are most affected by lack of accommodation.
IPAS has arrangements in place with a range of NGO partners to provide drop-in day services for unaccommodated people. This means people can access facilities including hot showers, meals and laundry services.
IPAS also makes offers of accommodation to any applicant who is rough sleeping, identified through outreach that is organised 7 days a week.
People who are not offered accommodation are given a weekly allowance of €113.80 per week, an increase of €75 more than the standard weekly allowance for asylum-seekers.
While the demand for IPAS accommodation remains high, the reduced rate of new applications has meant that IPAS has been able to review the cases of people who are awaiting an offer of accommodation and make offers to those who have been waiting longest.
This review has reduced the number of unaccommodated people from over 3,500 to 2,577 in the last few weeks.
As part of the review process, we are also identifying people who no longer require accommodation. They will be removed from the list of people waiting for an offer, speeding up the process for people on the list who still need accommodation.
Depending on availability of spaces and numbers of new applicants, we will continue to make offers of accommodation to more people over the coming weeks and months.
Updated information on unaccommodated international protection applicants is published online at Gov.ie.
