An Afghan asylum seeker has taken a case against the State claiming that his rights are being breached.
The man – who reports state cannot be named “for legal reasons” – says the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) has failed to provide him with accommodation since he applied for international protection on the 30th of January.
The man claims he has been sleeping rough after using a €25 voucher he was given to buy blankets and that he has experienced racial abuse, been mugged, and physically attacked while on the streets.
The man said he repeatedly approached IPAS in order to be allocated accommodation but was told that because of severe pressure on the emergency accommodation system that spaces for single males were severely limited.
He claims he fled Afghanistan after falling foul of the Taliban.
The man’s lawyers are seeking an injunction to force the State to provide him with accommodation claiming that the State is obliged to do so by law.
Mr Justice Charles Meenan described the man’s predicament as “pretty dire, to say the least”.
Representing Minister Roderic O’Gorman, David Conlan Smyth SC, said that although the State is taking the man’s case “very seriously” but that IPAS was struggling with the “enormous and unprecedented” pressure it is under do to the large number of asylum seekers who continue to arrive in the country.
RTÉ reported that “IPAS is accommodating 19,104 people at the moment compared to 8,500 people this time last year, he said. This figure did not include some 54,000 Ukrainians who have also been accommodated.”
The asylum seeker’s case was adjourned until this Friday.
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