New plan to end direct provision to be set out in revised White Paper

Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman will bring a revised White Paper to Cabinet in November setting out a longer-term plan to end the practice of direct provision for asylum seekers.

Mr O’Gorman published a White Paper in late 2020 which undertook to bring to an end by December 2024 the controversial system of accommodation for those seeking international protection in Ireland.

Central to that proposal was the construction of six new reception centres for asylum seekers that would house 330 people. The new arrangements would see people moving on from those centres after a short period of time to “own-door accommodation” in buildings owned by the State.

It would bring to an end to the system introduced in 2002 where asylum seekers stay in centres where they are provided with shared accommodation and the provision of meals. Some 5,000 people who have been granted full rights to stay in Ireland have remained in direct provision because of the housing crisis.

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The White Paper was published after receiving recommendations from an expert advisory group chaired by Dr Catherine Day, former secretary general of the European Commission.

However, the implementation of the policy has been overtaken by international events including 90,000 fleeing to Ireland from the war in Ukraine, and also by a fivefold increase in the number of people arriving into Ireland seeking international protection following Covid.

Over the weekend, Mr O’Gorman said the new White Paper would recognise the very different reality in 2023 compared with when the original policy was published in 2020. His comments were made in the wake of a report last week by the Ombudsman for Children which highlighted the detrimental psychological impact of direct and emergency hotel accommodation on children and their development.

He said the original White Paper envisaged about 3,500 asylum seekers arriving in Ireland each year, whereas the figure for 2022 and 2023 was heading for 15,000 per year, not taking into account the number of people who have arrived seeking refuge from the war in Ukraine. He said almost 100,000 people were being accommodated by the State at present.

“We are dealing with an utterly unprecedented situation, the largest humanitarian response our nation has ever mounted,” he said.

“We are accommodating 74,000 Ukrainians and we are accommodating another 25,000 people in the international protection process. And we’re doing that at a time when there are huge pressures on existing housing stocks in Ireland. We have had to use all available accommodation. The significant majority of that is hotel accommodation. We recognise the particular vulnerability of children in that situation.

Mr O’Gorman said he would be bringing the revised White Paper to Cabinet in the next few weeks. He said there was a need to increase the level of State-provided, and State-owned, accommodation, which he said was also a more sensible solution economically.

There have been some moves so far to acquire properties to be used as own-door homes for those seeking asylum. To date 37 properties have been bought by the State. Ten of them are in Dublin with five in Cork, five in Wexford, four in Mayo and three in Louth.

Earlier this year, Dr Day and the expert advisory group argued the State should use existing emergency powers to provide the six reception and integration centres put forward in the White Paper. The group said three should be provided by the end of 2023 and the remainder by the end of 2024.

“Emergency powers have been used to provide modular homes for Ukrainian refugees, so why not for asylum seekers,” Dr Day wrote in an article in The Irish Times.

It is understood the White Paper will include a commitment to provide the six centres within a short timeline, with longer timelines in relation to State-provided accommodation for asylum seekers, given the increase in numbers.