Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Roderic O’Gorman has announced details of the Governments comprehensive accommodation strategy for International Protection applicants.
The strategy document reveals that by 2028 Government aims to have up to 35 thousand beds within the IPAS system-broken down as follows:
| Accommodation offering breakdown by 2028 Accommodation Type | Bed Capacity | Ownership |
| Reception and Integration Centres and Accommodation Centres, at national standards | Up to 13,000 | State Owned |
| In-Community Accommodation for vulnerable persons, at national standards | Up to 1,000 | State Owned, operated in partnership with NGOs. |
| Contingency Accommodation, at national standards | Up to 11,000 | Commercial Providers |
| Emergency Accommodation | Up to 10,000 | Commercial Providers |
According to Minister O’Gorman new reforms will see a move away from reliance on private providers, with 14,000 beds becoming State-owned beds by 2028.
This will quadruple the previous commitment under the White Paper on Ending Direct Provision.
The Minister says this will be supplemented, as required, by high standard commercial providers. It is the intention of this new strategy to end the use of unsuitable accommodation options currently relied upon, such as the sole hotel remaining in a given town.
Accommodation in the new strategy will be delivered through the following multi-strand approach: