In an email response to a resident of Saggart where the Citywest State-owned asylum “transit hub” is located, South Dublin County Council (SDCC) confirmed that no Fire Safety Certificate has been granted for the Citywest Convention Centre, where asylum seekers are being housed.
Not alone that, but no Fire Safety Certificate has “been applied for, granted, or refused.” The inquiry had requested of the County Council if it could “Confirm whether any Fire-Safety Certificate has been applied for, granted, or refused in respect of the Convention Centre’s use as sleeping accommodation since 1 Jan 2022 (provide reference numbers and decision dates).”
SDCC Customer Contact System
If you need to contact SDCC about this enquiry please quote the reference CC18*****
Dear ******** ,I refer to your email of 4th November 2025 and response as below.
1. “Confirm whether any Fire-Safety Certificate has been applied for, granted, or refused in respect of the Convention Centre’s use as sleeping accommodation since 1 Jan 2022 (provide reference numbers and decision dates).”
I can confirm that no Fire-Safety Certificate have been applied for since 2022. However, I would like to confirm that a fire risk assessment has been carried out and that Dublin Fire Brigade were satisfied with the outcome of the assessment.
When one of the Saggart residents, Tanya Alt, met with the Department of Integration Community Engagement Team last Tuesday, November 11, she told one of the CET members present that she knew – on the basis of the email from SDCC – that the Convention Centre did not have a Fire Safety Certification.
A named member of the team told her that it did, and that it could not be accommodating people if it did not have such certification.
I emailed both the Community Engagement Team and the Department of Justice on Friday morning to ask them “when the conference centre at Citywest was given fire certification to allow it to be used as an accommodation centre?” I also contacted Tetrarch who used to own the Convention Centre before it was bought by the State.
The CET responded to state that “As this is a media query, we kindly request that all future media queries are only sent to pressoffice@justice.ie” My email to the Department was also referred to the Department of Justice press office. Happily then, they will have received it twice. Neither were responded to. Nor was my email to Tetrarch.
The Saggart residents also asked the Council whether there was an “evacuation strategy, and whether a Fire Safety Management Plan, staff training, drills, and fire detection/alarms, emergency lighting, compartmentation and escape provisions have been verified by your office for this use.”
A Staff Officer in SDCC referred them to the Dublin Fire Brigade. However, I have been informed and seen emails which confirm that similar queries to the Fire authorities were not responded to. My query was “forwarded to the relevant section” but I had received no response prior to publication.
As with so much of the Kafkaesque absurdity connected with asylum accommodation, when another Saggart resident asked the Dublin Fire Brigade in July this year about the above issues, she received a reply from them which advised her to “Please contact South Dublin County Council for the copy of the Fire Certificate at: firecerts@sdublincoco.ie”
Now, she has been told by South Dublin County Council that there is no Fire Safety Certificate in the first place, and that none was ever requested.
It is important to note that a satisfactory fire risk assessment is not a substitute for a Fire Safety Certificate.
A risk assessment is legally required under the Fire Services Acts and the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act (2005.) It assesses risks and is subject to regular review.
A Fire Safety Certificate is required under building regulations and is based on an assessment of structural aspects of buildings including fire escapes, resistance and suppression. It is a legal requirement for all “non-exempt” buildings under the Building Control Acts and Building Control Regulations.
The reference to exempted building is, of course, vital and the email from SDCC refers to Statutory Instrument 605/2022 which amended the Planning and Development Regulations. The council claims that a notification for such an exemption was received by them.
However, it concludes by pointing out that “emergency planning provisions such as Section 179A of the Planning and Development Act do not disapply the Building Control Regulations; a Fire-Safety Certificate remains mandatory where a material change of use to sleeping accommodation has occurred.”
And further – and bear in mind that it is the Convention Centre which was not part of the Citywest hotel accommodation – that “if there are parts of the hotel building(s) which were not originally in residential use (eg ancillary offices, convention centre (my emphasis), leisure, etc) are now being used for residential purposes by IPAS, then these areas would be subject to building control certificates and notices as a material change of use would have taken place, which is currently being examined.
Which is a kind of round the houses way of returning to the original admission that “no Fire-Safety Certificate have been applied for since 2022.
Which to my untutored eyes means that the Convention Centre at Citywest – which is used to accommodate asylum seekers – does not have the required Fire Safety Certification. No one officially has provided any information to contradict the Senior Staff Officer in SDCC and none of the officials in the Community Engagement Team of the Department of Integration, the Department of Justice, or the Dublin fire authorities has provided me with any.
And lest anyone think that the absence of fire safety certification is a rare oversight, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General published in September found that just 9 of 20 centres (there are 326 all told) inspected randomly by them had the proper certification.
Ponder that. Where is the consideration for the safety of the asylum seekers and the communities without whose consent the IPAS centres have been placed when it comes to handing out tickets for the Gravy Train?