Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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1870. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to remarks made by An Taoiseach while in Washington DC regarding the Government's approach to IPAS centres (details supplied) that "we didn't want hotels, particularly the last hotel in a given town, to be used for housing asylum seekers,"; and how she intends to implement this in coming months. [19876/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland currently provides accommodation over 33,000 people applying for international protection and has also welcomed over 114,000 people from Ukraine since 2022. Our accommodation systems have been forced to expand at a rapid pace over the last two years in response to a sharp increase in need among both groups.

The over 114,000 people who arrived from Ukraine, and a significant increase since 2022 in applications for international protection, have come at a time when accommodation in Ireland is in short supply across all dimensions.

The International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) provides accommodation at over 320 centres nationwide. Emergency centres have been opened in all parts of the country, and intensive efforts have been made, as part of a whole of Government response, to ensure people in need were provided with shelter and support. Over the last 2 years, against this backdrop of unique events in Ukraine, increased need, and the acute shortages of accommodation, it has not been possible for my Department to apply many specific policies in relation to distribution of accommodation centres.

The agreement to not contract IPAS accommodation in a given town’s only operating hotel was accepted by Government during this period of intense need, and was agreed to on the basis of not removing an important current amenity from public use.

This was based on not accepting a new contract that would take a town’s last hotel out of public use for events, holiday or business stays, and day-to-day use by the town for food, socialising or leisure. It is important to note that this applies to hotels which had been in current public use for accommodation – not those which had been closed to guests for a number of years.

While data is not collated formally, this agreement has been widely adhered to on the basis outlined above over the last year or more.

Our Department is working hard toward developing a more stable and sustainable accommodation system in this sector. Huge efforts are underway to source and bring into use suitable longer-term international protection accommodation facilities, in line with the Government’s Comprehensive Accommodation Strategy (CAS).

Trends in the need for accommodation are now changing, for example, the level of need among people from Ukraine has reduced and is expected to continue to do so. Many properties (more than 400 in 2024) are being returned to their former use, for example in tourism, hospitality and education, and to private use. Recent figures from Fáilte Ireland show that in 2024, over 12,000 beds were returned from use by my Department's Ukraine response to tourism. These were among 15,000 beds returned to private use by the Ukraine team in the period.

This should allow growth of the tourism sector in the areas concerned, with an acknowledgment of the contribution made by these areas and providers to support the historic humanitarian and State response to people fleeing the war in Ukraine.

Since March 2024, a government-approved strategy for international protection accommodation has been in implementation. This involves the use of State-owned land for emergency tented, prefabricated and modular units, conversion of commercial buildings, and targeted purchasing of turnkey properties.

As developing these more sustainable state-owned accommodation system options under this strategy will take time, the commissioning of emergency commercial accommodation will continue to be a feature in the short to medium term. However, this accommodation will be contracted on a shorter-term basis and if numbers drop can be decommissioned as contracts expire.