Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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871. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of vacant IPAS accommodation beds under paid contract with the State; the location of these vacant IPAS beds; the total cost to the State of these vacant beds. [23543/25]

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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872. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of IPAS accommodation beds under paid contract with the State that have been vacant for each of the past five years; the location of these vacant IPAS each of the past five years; and the total cost to the State of these vacant beds for each of the past five years. [23544/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 871 and 872 together.

The International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) is currently providing accommodation to approximately 33,000 international protection (IP) applicants. We have more than 320 accommodation centres, in every county in Ireland.

Since 2022, the accommodation system operated at or near capacity, as sharp increases in applications, and ongoing shortages of suitable accommodation, were ongoing.

IPAS teams work at all times to ensure the extremely limited accommodation capacity we have is used in the best and most effective way, prioritising those people who are most vulnerable or those with families.

That being acknowledged, across the IPAS portfolio of accommodation centres, there will always be a difference between the maximum capacity of a centre and the actual number of International Protection applicants in residence.

I regret that IPAS do not provide vacancy reports data in the format or timeframe requested by the Deputy, I can confirm that during 2023 and 2024, IPAS had occupancy rates of over 95% while at the same time having no usable beds available to accommodate all arriving international protection applicants. This is due to renovations, room configurations, building works, upgrade works and other operational reasons.

The largest factor behind this is room configurations, and the fact that of our approximate 33,000 residents, over a quarter are children with families.

The importance of accommodating families together, regardless of their varying family sizes, means that for example, a room that may have a maximum capacity of 4 people, may be occupied by a family of 3, meaning that additional bed can't be offered to another person. While IPAS teams do their best to allocate spaces to best use, across a large system, room configuration can lead to reduced occupancy that is not avoidable.

It is also essential for IPAS to try to maintain some vacancies on an ongoing basis for newly arrived vulnerable applicants. People or families who are assessed or triaged as vulnerable would include people who have significant health problems, including mental health problems and illness, people who have a disability, people who are pregnant, and other concerns.

Contractual issues with service providers will also leave potential beds unused pending the resolution of issues, including the need to upgrade and renovate rooms. A significant portion of bed capacity unavailable is further accounted for through the need for maintenance or deep cleaning of rooms following moves and, ring-fenced beds to facilitate the opening and closing of accommodation centres.

The variances between occupancy rates and maximum capacity are within expected norms given the wide variety of IPAS property portfolio, contractual obligations of the properties available and the demand-led nature of the service being delivered.

IPAS continues to maximise bed capacity with occupancy rates tracked and monitored on a weekly basis, based on register returns submitted by centre management. Centres are also subject to desktop audits and onsite inspections to ensure accurate registers are kept.

The total costs for IPAS accommodation from 2019 to 2024 is below.

Overall costs for IPAS Accommodation 2019-2024