Up to 50,000 asylum seekers to need housing by 2026, memo warns
Documents obtained by the Business Post reveal how Department of Integration secretary general warned of ‘no sufficient pipeline of accommodation’ to resolve very serious shortfall
Up to 50,000 asylum seekers will need accommodation by the end of 2026, the Department of Integration has warned.
It comes as the government has moved to build state-owned reception centres.
In a letter to the Department of Public Expenditure, Kevin McCarthy, the secretary general at the Department of Integration, laid out in stark terms the pressures facing the government in finding accommodation amid an over-reliance on private operators.
The correspondence, obtained by the Business Post under the Freedom of Information Act, was sent six weeks before Roderic O’Gorman, the integration minister, announced a plan in late March to acquire 14,000 state-owned beds for international protection applicants after months of sustained pressure on the accommodation system.
