Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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495. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality his views on the need to prioritise international protection applicants who are sleeping rough; his plans to prioritise provision of accommodation for single male international protection applicants who have not been granted accommodation since December 2023; his views on the adequacy of processes currently in place for proving such persons are, in fact, sleeping rough (details supplied); if he is satisfied at the adequacy of existing procedures to deal with threats of violence against such persons, such as by moving them on to another area; and his plans to ensure that such persons are not the subject of violent attack, intimidation or at risk from the inherent dangers of sleeping rough. [50470/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland is currently accommodating over 32,000 people seeking international protection in over 320 International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) centres around the country.

Due to severe shortages of accommodation over recent years, from December 2023, the State was unable to offer accommodation to all people seeking international protection.

My Department manages a limited supply of accommodation, prioritising people with families or who have specific health needs or other vulnerabilities. This means that single male applicants are most affected by accommodation pressures.

People who are not offered accommodation are given a weekly allowance of €113.80 per week, an increase of €75 more than the standard weekly allowance for asylum-seekers.

IPAS has arrangements in place with a range of NGO partners to provide drop-in day services for unaccommodated people. This means people can access facilities including hot showers, meals and laundry services.

IPAS also makes offers of accommodation to any applicant who is rough sleeping, identified through outreach that is organised 7 days a week.

While the demand for IPAS accommodation remains high, the reduced rate of new applications has meant that IPAS bas been able to review the cases of people who are awaiting an offer of accommodation and make offers to those who have been waiting longest.

As part of the review process, we are also identifying people who no longer require accommodation. They will be removed from the list of people waiting for an offer, speeding up the process for people on the list who still need accommodation.

This review has reduced the number of unaccommodated people from over 3,500 in March 2025, to 722 in August 2025.

This means that eligible people who applied for international protection during 2023 and 2024 and the earlier part of 2025 have received an offer of accommodation.

Depending on availability of spaces and numbers of new applicants, we will continue to make offers of accommodation to more people over the coming weeks and months.

Updated information on unaccommodated international protection applicants is published online at .

www.gov.ie/en/department-of-justice-home-affairs-and-migration/publications/statistics-on-international-protection-applicants-not-offered-accommodation/?referrer=