James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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436. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will address matters raised in correspondence by a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6823/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Deputy, The correspondence under reference raises matters which are the policy responsibility of a range of Departments. I will focus on the issue of accommodation. The International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) within the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is currently providing accommodation to 19,741persons (as of 05 February 2023). The pace of arrivals of international protection applicants continues to be high, 1,232 persons arriving in January 2023.

While 60 new accommodation centres have been opened since 1 January 2022 and while IPAS has brought accommodation onstream in a range of repurposed buildings and facilities, arrivals have consistently run ahead of available capacity.

While IPAS is currently encountering significant challenges in providing accommodation to anumber of international protection applicants, it also faces a looming accommodation shortfall for applicants it currently accommodates due to the impending loss of contracts with large hotels.

Admission of adult international protection applicants to the Citywest Transit Hub has been paused since 24 January 2023 as the Transit Hub is currently at capacity. It is accepting only international protection applicant children and their families. As of 9 February, IPAS is currently unable to offer accommodation to 180 single adult male applicants. It is anticipated that this number will increase significantly over the coming weeks as IPAS does not have accommodation for single adult males for the next weeks.

IPAS takes contact details for those whom it is unable to accommodate and offers accommodation to them, when available, including in the Kilbride Army Camp, which was made available for this purpose by the Department of Defence. 119 persons who were initially not offered accommodation have been subsequently offered accommodation since the Citywest Transit Hub pause was initiated on 24 January.

IPAS continues to rely on hotels for much of its existing accommodation capacity. However, a number of large hotels have informed IPAS that they are ending their contracts with IPAS either in full or partially. IPAS will lose 2010 beds between now and end April 2023. Families as well as single persons will be affected.

Intensive efforts are being undertaken daily by staff in DCEDIY to source emergency accommodation.

An initial paper with some options and recommendations was brought to the White Paper Programme Board for their input and feedback. A sub-group of the Programme Board was established, to focus on developing further the set of recommendations and proposals. An interim report from this sub-group has now been received by the Department. As indicated the External Advisory Group has also provided a paper with observations and recommendations for consideration. Work will continue over the coming weeks to complete the review. It is planned a new set of proposals on the White paper with new timelines will brought to government by the end of quarter one 2023.