The new Government’s decision to move responsibility for housing asylum seekers and Ukrainian refugees to a junior minister portfolio means there will no longer be “direct advocacy” on this issue around the Cabinet table, Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman has said.
A Fine Gael TD is expected to be appointed as minister of state for migration in the coming days, a role which will oversee the accommodation of international protection applicants and Ukrainian beneficiaries of temporary protection (BOTPs). Responsibility for housing these two groups previously rested within the Department of Integration, led by Mr O’Gorman.
The decision to move the immigration portfolio back in to the Department of Justice – which was responsible for accommodating and supporting asylum seekers between 2000 and 2020 – has caused concern among advocates for the asylum system proposed in a 2020 expert advisory group and subsequently laid out in a 2021 government White Paper to end direct provision. There are also concerns the process of moving the international protection and BOTP accommodation brief to within the Department of Justice could be a drawn-out process and take months.
It appears the Government is “actually scaling down the mechanism to deal with international protection accommodation, when we should be scaling up,” Mr O’Gorman told The Irish Times. “Moving it over to a junior minister means that there won’t be direct advocacy on the accommodation issue around the Cabinet table.” The Programme for Government’s brief reference to asylum seekers, with no reference to Ukrainian refugees, further underlines “the lack of priority given to this issue by the incoming Government”, said the Green Party leader.
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Civil society groups, including the Irish Refugee Council, have also expressed concerns that supports for Ukrainian refugees, including whether the accommodation recognition payment will continue beyond March 2025, are not mentioned in the Programme for Government.
UCD professor of migration and social policy Bryan Fanning believes handing responsibility for immigration accommodation and supports to a junior ministry within the Department of Justice turns supports for these newcomers into a “law, order and security” issue.
“Justice has no expertise in social policy or engaging with community groups, it is historically very poor at this,” said Prof Fanning. “What’s totally missing from Programme for Government is any focus on social cohesion, on supporting local communities, on saying to communities that are hosting significant numbers of refugees, we have a plan and infrastructure around this. No Government policy document has addressed in detail how community engagement might be improved.”
The lack of Government commitments to promote integration beyond the “implicit expectation that the voluntary sector will step up to help integrate newcomers” is also contributing to the “politicisation of immigration”, he added.
“There’s no sense of positive leadership around this. We need Government officials who will say to communities hosting these people, ‘We’ve got your back, we’re giving you support.’ Who is going to do this if the official approach is entirely focused on justice and reducing numbers?”
Olivia Headon, a spokeswoman for volunteers who have worked with homeless asylum seekers in Dublin since early 2024, said the new Government’s policy on immigration and housing asylum seekers was “reflective of conservative European politics” when it should focus on measures that are “beneficial not only for newcomers but for us, as the host nation”.
“I’d be very concerned about not having an advocate for integration in the new Government but I’d be almost more concerned to continue with the level of ineptitude around immigration. The systems need to be fixed.”
“With a better-functioning system you wouldn’t have asylum seekers on the streets but you also wouldn’t have people angry because they no longer have a hotel in their town,” said Ms Headon. “When migration works, it works for everybody.”
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