The latest release of figures from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) show that a total of €436,679,351 was paid out in the first quarter of 2024 to companies providing accommodation and other services to people claiming Temporary Protection from the war in Ukraine or to asylum applicants.
The total figure paid to providers of accommodation and services in 2023 was €2.1 billion. The amounts have risen sharply since the end of the Covid travel restrictions; from €186 million in 2021, to €830 million in 2022, before more than doubling last year.
The total costs since 2020 look well on the way to reaching €5 billion by the end of this year.
The top ten recipients of payments for the first three months of 2024 were:
Cape Wrath €16,762,514
Travelodge €11,189,310
Holiday Inn €10,300,687
Guestford € 9,438,483
Tifco € 8,397,792
Total Experience € 7,708,610
Next Week € 5,852,220
Mosney Holidays € 5,586,741
Igo Emergency Management € 5,561,713
Townbe € 3,942,716
There are other companies, however, which draw down payments under different company names and we shall be shedding more light on this, as well as some of the more interesting new entrants into the goldmine that is asylum accommodation and services.
Such provision, in these times, clearly represents for some the equivalent of the South Sea Bubble, or the Alaskan Gold Rush, and with just as little of anything to show for it at the end of the day other than inflated bank accounts, many of them in banks a long way from Ireland of the Welcomes.