The then-Department of Integration actively planned for “politically unpopular” refugee camps in response to surging levels of inward migration, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.
A Department presentation titled ‘Estimates 2024’ released to journalist Ken Foxe set out the challenges the State was facing in late 2023, including an “imminent humanitarian crisis” in the form of a lack of beds and “tented refugee camps”.
The presentation, which was forwarded to staff at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, lists under the heading “immediate challenges” the fact that in response to the possibility of a lack of accommodation, the Department had entered into negotiations with the International Office for Migration (IOM) “for the creation of [a] refugee camp”.
The IOM is part of the United Nations System, describing itself as the “leading inter-governmental organization promoting since 1951 humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all”.
“The Dept is in negotiations with IOM for the creation of [a] refugee camp for eventual lack of accommodation, which may or may not come on stream on time,” it reads, continuing, “the political optics of this would be poor and the cost very high”.
A page later, the Department stated that it is “actively considering larger scale ‘tented camps’ to accommodate applicants for when standard accommodation is no longer coming on stream”.
However, it noted that such camps are “expensive, low quality, vulnerable to weather events, unsustainable and politically unpopular,” and that as such the better solutions were utilising “State developed and/or State purchased” accommodation solutions.
On the topic of integration, the presentation warned that without development and growth of the State’s integration systems in line with the growth in asylum seekers and those benefitting from refugee status, “the long term consequences for social stability for the State cannot be underplayed”.
In terms of long-term planning, the document warned that the State had “effectively maximised” the majority of private sector delivery capacity for ‘dayrate’ current expenditure, another slide stating that “every negotiation with providers is for higher cost and lower quality”.
“The line of sight on viable proposals is weak and the flow of proposals is low,” the presentation reads, adding that hoteliers, property owners and developers “are either at the full extent of their capacity and/or are unwilling to enter this politically sensitive space”.