Independent TD Carol Nolan has described the latest revelations regading huge payments being made to providers of asylum accomodation as ‘the clearest confirmation yet that Ireland is The Orient Express of gravy trains’ for a growing number of private providers.
Deputy Nolan was speaking after the Department of Integration published its latest data on what is expected to be a multi-billion-euro expenditure for 2024 following a €2.1 billion payout in accommodation costs in 2023:
“We are now spending the equivalent of the National Children’s Hospital each year on contracts to private providers; that is absolutely astonishing and clearly unsustainable,” Deputy Nolan said.
“That is to say nothing of the impact this level of accommodation need for a growing international protection population is having on health, schools, housing and social protection costs.”
“The cumulative costs are building up with no effective plan to put in place the kind of push factor measures that we desperately need.”
“We have seen the measures that Germany and other EU member states are adopting; while our approach seems to be more of the same,” she said.
“Any objective analysis of the data can only lead us to the conclusion that Ireland is now a virtual buyers paradise for a select number of private pension funds and international venture capital operators,” she added referring to the significant number of funds now involved in asylum accomodation provision.
“That will be a key feature and a lasting legacy of this reckless and extraordinarily spineless administration that has only belatedly woken up to the basic reality that we do not have an infinite capacity to absorb anyone and everyone who wants to come here,” she added.
“That approach has created a lose-lose scenario for genuine international protection applicants and communities throughout the length and breadth of the country,” concluded Deputy Nolan.