Seven International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) contracts with commercial accommodation providers were ended in the first four months of the year for reasons including noncompliance with planning, fire safety and other regulations, the Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, has said.
More than 90 per cent of all international protection accommodation is provided on a commercial basis, with hotels, B&Bs and other centres taking up contracts to provide beds for people arriving in the State seeking asylum.
This reliance on private providers led to the Government spending more than €1 billion on international protection accommodation last year. The budget for this year is €1.2 billion.
Concerns have been raised about standards at some private accommodation centres, which are not all subject to independent inspections.
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Mr O’Callaghan has said his preference is for international protection applicants to be housed in State-owned accommodation.
Figures released by his department in response to a parliamentary question from Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon show that between January 1st and May 7th last, eight contracts with private accommodation providers were terminated. This represented 140 bed spaces.
The department said seven of the contracts were ended by the State side, with one terminated by the provider.
“I am informed that reasons for termination can vary but can include noncompliance with contractual terms or with regulatory requirements like building and fire regulations or planning matters,” Mr O’Callaghan said.
“In the same period, 12 new IPAS accommodation contracts have been agreed, accounting for capacity of up to 848 bed spaces.”
Mr O’Callaghan said the commissioning of emergency commercial accommodation “will continue to be necessary” in the short to medium term, but it is being contracted on a short-term basis to allow the “State to decommission this capacity with agility as contracts expire or demand fluctuates”.
Mr Gannon said he had sought figures on the numbers of IPAS contracts that were ending following a media interview given by Mr O’Callaghan last month.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, the Minister said “many” of the agreements with private providers were “now being terminated”. He said this was “because if the numbers are going down, we don’t need to have as many places for accommodation as provided before”.
Mr Gannon said the figures released to him showed there had, in reality, been more contracts created than ended this year.
“So, far from winding things down, the system is expanding,” Mr Gannon said.
While he welcomed planned reforms such as faster processing times for international protection applications, Mr Gannon said the fairness of the system matters “just as much” as the speed of it.
“The truth is, Ireland is already failing to meet its legal obligations. In December, over 3,000 asylum seekers were left homeless,” he said.
“In April, the European Court of Justice confirmed that housing shortages are no excuse for denying basic care. We can’t afford to play politics with facts, or with people’s lives. The real issue isn’t too many beds, it’s too little planning, too much reliance on the private sector, and not enough focus on human rights and dignity at the core of the system.”
In April, the Office of the Protected Disclosures Commissioner said IPAS centres had been the subject of six whistleblowing allegations last year. It said these centres were an “emerging theme” for the office and it raised concerns about “the lack of uniformity of the inspection regime” for them.
The Department of Justice said: “Owing to the protected nature of protected disclosures, the department does not comment on whether such disclosures have been made in any specific instance.”
