Asylum-seekers sleep out as hostels, B&Bs fill up

A massive rise in the number of asylum-seekers coming to Dublin has created a housing crisis in the capital, prompting health board officials to turn away hundreds of applicants for accommodation.

Up to 50 asylum-seekers a day are currently being turned away from Dublin's refugee applications centre, after being told that the capital's emergency hostels and B&Bs were all full. Some of those unable to find shelter with friends or family have slept out overnight.

In one case a Roma family from Eastern Europe, including three small children, had to sleep in the open overnight because there was nowhere to house them.

They spent a night in a citycentre park before contacting the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Dublin, where an official interceded on their behalf. They were eventually put up in a £100-a-night hotel near Grafton Street.

Other asylum-seekers have been put up in the city's best hotels when no other accommodation could be found. The cost of providing accommodation and other welfare benefits to asylum-seekers is expected to reach £35 million by the end of this year, according to the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs.

A spokesman for the UNHCR said last night he was concerned about the shortage of accommodation and hoped the Government would tackle the problem as a priority. "It is not a good idea to leave people sleeping on the streets," he said.

Asylum-seekers are arriving at a record rate of 250 per week. Numbers have doubled since last July, a trend officials blame on the Government's decision to allow some asylum-seekers to work.

Sources say Eastern Health Board staff in the refugee applications centre started turning away single people last week, but have since extended this to families. Yesterday up to 25 people, many of them newly arrived in Ireland and carrying all their belongings, were turned away, having queued outside the building in Lower Mount Street for some time.

A similar number was turned away the previous day, when the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, visited the centre to mark the first anniversary of its opening. Those turned away were given money to find their own accommodation.

The EHB now has 2,500 asylum-seekers in emergency accommodation and 6,000 in private rented accommodation. A spokeswoman said the board was actively seeking accommodation in Kilkenny, Donegal and Cork.

One of the options currently being considered by the Department is to disperse asylum-seekers more evenly throughout the State. Many of the hostels used to house Kosovan refugees are vacant.

Currently, up to 98 per cent of applications are made in the EHB area. However, attempts to enlist the voluntary co-operation of other health boards have met with resistance in some areas.

The Minister and his officials consistently opposed granting work permits to asylum-seekers but Mr O'Donoghue was pressurised into a compromise last May by the Progressive Democrats. The measure applied only to asylum-seekers who had been in the State for at least 12 months, and who arrived before it was introduced.

Although provisions for asylum-seekers in the UK have become more stringent, Britain has also experienced a big increase in applications in the past few months.

Some 4,446 asylum-seekers came to Ireland in the first nine months of this year, more than in the whole of last year. This number includes 1,369 Romanians and 895 Nigerians.