Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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18. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No. 1082 of 10 June 2025, the number of international protection applicants who have not been offered accommodation on arrival, by month, from May 2025 to-date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54232/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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Extensive challenges were posed to the State in sourcing international protection accommodation during an unprecedented surge in applications from 2022 to 2024.

During this period, over 45,000 additional international protection applicants arrived in Ireland. Prior to this, a typical 3-year period would have seen close to 8,000 or 9,000 arrivals.

During the surge period, the State was obliged to urgently source over 26,000 beds for international protection applicants, and in parallel, up to 60,000 beds for people fleeing the war in Ukraine.

Shortages of suitable accommodation meant that from December 2023 on, IPAS has been unable to offer accommodation to all single male applicants on arrival.

After a vulnerability triage on application, 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.

While not all unaccommodated applicants are rough-sleeping, IPAS can also make offers of accommodation to any applicant who is, identified through outreach that is organised 7 days a week. IPAS also 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.

The number of single male applicants not offered accommodation on arrival from May to September 2025 was:

The reduced rate of new applications this year 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 613. As my officials work through these cases on a daily basis and validate data for publication, I expect this number to reduce further for September.

This means that eligible people who applied for international protection during 2023 and 2024 and the first 6 months 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.