More than 1,300 people over the last two years who had left direct provision sought emergency accommodation in Dublin because they were homeless, a report provided to a Dáil committee reveals.
Between 2020 and 2025, a total of 1,758 individuals who left the State-run direct provision system after securing international protection had, within six months, entered homeless services in the capital, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) told the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts.
The report indicated the figures did not include households that presented to emergency accommodation services due to a grant of family reunification.
The figures show a significant increase since 2023 in the number of former residents of direct provision facilities seeking emergency accommodation within a short period of leaving the system.
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In 2023, the report noted, there were 243 individuals who had, within six months of leaving direct provision, entered homeless services in Dublin.
The figures were particularly high in the past two years, with more than 1,300 people who had left direct provision seeking homeless accommodation.
In 2024, this figure increased to 638 and rose again, in 2025, to 674. In 2022, the figure was 88.
The report by the DRHE stated that between 2020 and 2025, a total of 1,362 single adults who had been in direct provision had subsequently entered homeless services in Dublin. There were also 127 families. Overall, the number of people was 1,758.
“Leaving direct provision in the preceding six months was the largest driver of single adult homelessness in 2024 and 2025, accounting for 25 per cent of all new single entrants,” states the report to the committee.
The report also noted that leaving direct provision in the preceding six months accounted for 7 per cent of all new family presentations in 2025.
According to the document, the main reasons for families entering homeless services in Dublin are: notices of termination (37 per cent); relationship breakdown with a parent (10 per cent); presentations on foot of a grant of family reunification (8 per cent); and single adult in emergency accommodation becoming a family household following the birth of a child/custody (8 per cent).
The report indicated that of the 8,267 people in emergency accommodation in the Dublin region at the end of January this year, 36 per cent or just over 3,000 came from outside the European Economic Area.
Almost 42 per cent, or 3,460 people, were Irish.
Under the direct provision system, people are housed in institutional centres or former hotels and other types of accommodation while awaiting decisions on their asylum requests for international protection.
It was originally designed as a short-term measure, dating back to the year 2000. But many applicants experience long delays in the system and can spend years living in direct provision housing.
The DRHE said the profile of those presenting themselves as homeless after leaving direct provision in recent years was households that “have status and who have received a letter to advise they are to be moved, often a considerable distance” from their international protection accommodation service.
“The Dublin local authorities will not offer emergency accommodation where the household is deemed to have accommodation available to them,” notes the report.
“However, some households will take the risk of leaving voluntarily to avoid changing schools and/or for employment reasons. They may later present seeking emergency accommodation, having left insecure and temporary arrangements.”
