I propose to take Questions Nos. 541 and 542 together.
My Department is taking action across all aspects of international protection accommodation to improve value for money, strengthen governance and compliance, and renegotiate contracts with providers.
This forms part of an overall reform of the International Protection system that is already working to speed up processing of applications and to move away from commercial provision to more State-owned accommodation. These reforms will help to drive down costs and to curtail the growth seen over recent years in the accommodation system.
My Department worked closely with the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) in carrying out an extensive review of costs and processes within the international protection accommodation system. I can confirm that all recommendations in the C&AG 2024 report have been accepted and implemented by the Department.
The report looked at overall processes and sampled 20 IPAS contracts. It acknowledged the extensive challenges posed to the State to source accommodation during an unprecedented surge in applications from 2022 to 2024.
During this period, over 45,000 additional international protection applicants arrived in Ireland. Prior to this, a typical three-year period would have seen close to 8,000 or 9,000 arrivals. As such, today’s standards of pre-contract assessments and negotiations could not be applied to all the accommodation that had to be sourced at pace from 2022 to 2024.
A range of updated and strengthened systems and procedures have been put in place and are already having an impact, including processes for appraisal, validation, contracting and payments.
A new rate-card pricing structure was introduced in May 2025 and has been applied to all new or renewing contracts. The rate card is considered commercially sensitive as it is used in live negotiations, but it functions as a bench-mark rate across various types of accommodation and is being used to renegotiate rates on renewal, and to define rates for any new contracts. Implementation of this rate card has resulted in savings of over €140m in projected contract values to date.
Of the 287 commercial IPAS contracts in place today, 90% or 257 have active contracts or agreed rates with the Department.The remainder are either currently under negotiation, are subject to termination or are otherwise under active review by Department officials.
