Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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433. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he supports allowing asylum seekers to engage with homeless services at local authority-level; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9502/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Decisions on who is eligible to engage with homeless services are matters for the Minister for Housing.

As the Deputy will be aware, the response to the ongoing migration crisis has entered an extremely difficult phase; with no apparent accommodation for international protection applicants (IPAs) at scale available into the short term to medium term.

The overflow facility at the Citywest Transit Hub has reached capacity and it became necessary to pause arrival of new (IPAs) into the overflow facility at Citywest from 24 January.

IPAS is working intensively to procure additional emergency accommodation for those who have not been accommodated since the paused entry to Citywest began. As at 27 February the total number of people who have not been accommodated by IPAS since 24 January stands at 183. As at 24 February, the total number of people who were originally not accommodated by IPAS due to the paused entry to Citywest but have since been offered accommodation stands at 247.

IPAS are currently contacting people who have arrived on 7 February to offer them accommodation and are operating a strict queueing system in chronological order of arrival date to ensure fairness.

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

Emergency centres have been opened in all parts of the country. There have been over 90 accommodation locations utilised since January 2022 across 17 counties.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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434. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will support lifting the restrictions on the right to work, to allow all asylum seekers to work and implementing all the recommendations of a group (details supplied) in relation to the right to work; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9505/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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As the Deputy will be aware, my Department is responsible for the provision of accommodation to persons in the International Protection process. All matters and obligations relating to the Labour Permission Access should be directed to Department of Justice.