Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We do need to have statements on the Government's policy to ensure adequate accommodation is in place for those who come here seeking refuge. I was back at Percy Place this morning, having been there yesterday. The numbers of those forced to sleep in tents have increased over those days. I commend the local volunteers who have been providing support. Clearly, this is inhumane and unsustainable, and the Government has failed to offer the coherent plan that is needed longer term to provide accommodation. Today, at the IPAS office in Mount Street, a notice has been put up advising those who are now in tented accommodation that they can have an increased daily expense allowance if they leave that tented accommodation. This is clearly a desperate stopgap attempt to move people on without any reality in the provision of longer term accommodation. We need to hear from the Government, particularly from the Taoiseach, as to how it proposes to implement the Catherine Day report, its own commissioned report, which last year recommended six reception and intervention centres with adequate capacity to give accommodation and shelter to those who come here seeking refuge.

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