A High Court judge has noted that community protests have prevented the State from allocating some 335 beds to international protection applicants who require accommodation.
Mr Justice Charles Meenan remarked on the protests after being informed that the number of international protection applicants who need accommodation has fallen in recent weeks from 500 on May 5th to 217 at present.
The judge said the State should be able to accommodate the remaining people seeking accommodation but was “unable to do so” because of the protests at the two facilities.
Last month, in a decision in a lead case, the judge ruled the Minister for Integration’s failure to provide “material reception conditions” for a homeless Afghan asylum seeker was not in compliance with EU (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2018 and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
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This case, and several other similar cases seeking orders requiring the Minister to provide proper reception conditions, came back before the judge on Wednesday when the court was updated about the State’s efforts to source additional accommodation to meet the demand.
In a sworn statement to the court, Carol Baxter, assistant secretary general with responsibility for the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) at the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, said continuing efforts were being made to secure places for IP applicants.
The court was previously told the situation had become extremely difficult because of an increase in the numbers of people seeking international protection and because of the loss of thousands of beds when accommodation contracts ended earlier this year.
The situation had improved since the court was last updated, she said.
Additional offers of accommodation were being made to the IPAS and in the recent weeks more than 280 people were given places at the Citywest transit hub and at a facility in Kilbride, Co Wicklow.
She said the department has three large projects in train that would generate 1,200 additional beds, one of which came into use last week and resulted in 220 beds being offered..
Regulatory issues were being resolved in respect of two other properties, which collectively had a capacity for 460 beds, she said.
It is further hoped more places will become available at Citywest and Kilbride.
The court heard that since the end of January about 1,000 asylum seekers who were initially without accommodation had now been offered a place to stay.
‘Headwinds’
The Minister’s senior counsel, David Conlan Smyth, said the number of people currently unaccommodated has been reduced to 217.
However, considerable progress had been made against what Ms Baxter said were “not inconsiderable headwinds”.
Ms Baxter added that the IPAS has introduced a new system to assess the vulnerability of people seeking international protection and had been working with homeless charity Merchant’s Quay Ireland to offer a clinic each Wednesday to unaccommodated IP applicants.
The judge noted the applicants in the majority of the cases before him had been offered accommodation by the IPAS.
As a result, he said, most of the urgent issues in the various High Court actions launched by those seeking accommodation had, in reality, come to an end.
The judge said he was adjourning the cases “en bloc” to a date in June.
In the meantime, he urged the parties’ legal teams to address themselves to dealing with the outstanding matters that remained in the cases, namely the issue of damages and the legal costs of the proceedings.
During the proceedings, lawyers for some of the applicants said their clients had been accommodated while others said their clients had been left in an “unacceptable” situation because they had only been offered a chair to sleep on in the locations they are staying.
The judge said a system had been put in place by the IPAS to allocate beds for those who were currently on chairs.
The court was “reluctant” to get into a “supervisory role”, the judge said
The matter will return before Mr Justice Meenan next month.