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Ireland’s revised plan for asylum seekers fraught with difficulty

New plan unlikely to change much about the current reality of the accommodation crisis

People help two new arrivals put up a tent outside the International Protection Office on Mount Street in Dublin. Photograph: Kitty Holland

Jack Horgan-Jones's face
Jack Horgan-Jones Political Correspondent
Fri Mar 15 2024 - 06:00

Like the rest of the Cabinet, Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman is in far-flung places for St Patrick’s Day. In Japan, he is unlikely to face difficult questions about either the disastrous referendum campaigns in his immediate past, or the migrant crisis that will define the coming weeks for the Green Party TD. However, both continue to rage at home.

The intention is to bring a revised plan for accommodating asylum seekers to Cabinet next week. The mood music emanating from Government sources is not encouraging – Fianna Fáil in particular is said to have concerns about drafts that have been circulated. O’Gorman struggled to get his proposals to cut the offering for Ukrainians through Cabinet when they were initially floated. After weeks of fruitless discussion with Coalition leaders, they prompted one of the nastiest and most widely leaked Cabinet rows of the Coalition’s lifetime. Further reductions could undermine Government stability at a time when morale and confidence has already been badly dented by the failure of the referendum campaigns.

What we know about the new plan for asylum seekers is that it is likely to look a bit like the old plan – that authored by former secretary general of the European Commission Catherine Day, which envisaged dismantling the private-sector reliance on the direct provision system and replacing it with larger, State-owned or leased accommodation centres. That plan was thrown badly off course by the scale of the challenge that arrived in 2022. What we also know is that, new or not, it is unlikely to change much about the current reality of the accommodation crisis. O’Gorman said as much in an interview with The Irish Times in January. It will take a number of years to get enough accommodation on stream and in between there will be an ongoing reliance on the private sector.

In the meantime, the current situation is as vexed as ever. On the one hand, pressure is somewhat alleviating on the Ukrainian side of the ledger. Driven by lower arrival numbers, there are significantly fewer Ukrainians in serviced accommodation – hotels and B&Bs, to you and me. Some 4,300 fewer are being accommodated compared with the start of the year, a precipitous drop that has enabled the State to step away from contract renewals and begin to wind down its massive holdings of hotel beds around the country. There are still more than 53,000, but the drop is marked.

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Part of this is undoubtedly down to the reduced attractiveness of the Irish offering – from March 14th, Ukrainians arriving in Ireland will be accommodated for 90 days in specific accommodation centres before being asked to move on, and welfare entitlements while in State accommodation have been cut to €38.80 for an adult and €29.80 per child – but this also comes at a cost.

Despite being well signalled, when it came into effect this week the opprobrium from civil society was significant – the most serious coming in a letter from the Irish Red Cross, which has been to the forefront of non-State groups involved in the response. Their warning of a dire impact on the private rental sector – an argument that cropped up at Cabinet last year, and echoes Sinn Féin’s critique of the new policies – is a telling one. The new 90-day policy also invites a serious pinch point. For those who run out of time, especially in difficult circumstances, does the department show flexibility and risk undermining its own policy? Or does it cast them out and risk being painted as cruel and indifferent? What happens on Day 91?

Meanwhile, the situation facing international protection applicants is truly dire. Just 500 extra beds have been added from the stock of newly free Ukrainian beds, against a backdrop where 1,200 are unaccommodated. The tented encampment at Mount Street in Dublin is rapidly attaining a grim notoriety. If something tragic or violent ensues there, the political consequences as well as the human costs would be significant.

For those politicians and officials responsible for this, the costs of failure are huge and the task incredibly fraught and complicated. Meanwhile, in truth, the all-of-government response has really been “some-of-government, but the Department of Integration all the time”. It will all be waiting for O’Gorman on his return.

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