The state is expected to spend at least €1.2 billion on asylum supports this year and, if the spending pattern as detailed in today’s Purchase Order report for Quarter 1 2025 from the Department of Equality continues, that budget will be easily met and likely surpassed given that people – often from safe countries – are still rocking up in their thousands every quarter claiming to be refugees.
Some €415 million euro – €415,794,037 to be precise – was spent between January and end of March 2025.
All the usual suspects, whose enormous revenue-making from asylum has been so well documented by my colleague Matt Treacy, mostly feature on the listing, and Nick Delehanty provided this handy summary (below) in this post on X.
There’s Cape Wrath pulling in an eye-watering €18.7 million for just three months’ provision, and Mosney almost making 10 million euros in the same period. It’s certainly more profitable than lunches and ice-creams, especially when, as is the case with City West the government will also cover the ordinary business expense of council rates.
The stunning turnaround for IGO Cafe – which used to sell cupcakes before making asylum millionaires of its owners – continues, with €5.3 million pulled in for the first quarter of 2025.
Delehanty’s list of the top 20 beneficiaries, also includes the relatively new ‘mystery entrant’, Brava Capital, who look set to make a whopping €28 million from us taxpayers for caring this year – and he notes that if the companies controlled or associated with Séamus ‘Banty’ McEneaney, the former Monaghan GAA manager, were added together, they pulled in more than €20 million in payments in the quarter.
These are the top 20 recipients of payments from the State for asylum accommodation and “related costs” for Quarter 1 2025
Cape Wrath Hotel (City West)– €18.7M
Mosney Holidays – €9.7M
Holiday Inn (Skyline View) – €8.5M
Travelodge Hotels – €8.0M
East Coast Catering – €7.5M
Brava Capital – €7.2M
Total Experience – €6.8M
Bridgestock Care – €6.8M
Campbell Catering – €6.6M
Kintrona Ltd – €6.2M
Allpro Security – €6.0M
Brimwood Unlimited – €5.6M
Guestford Ltd – €5.5M
The D Hotel – €5.4M
IGO Cafe – €5.3M
JMA Ventures – €5.1M
Gateway Integration – €5.1M
Trailhead Unlimited – €5.0M
Windward Mgmt – €4.6M
Seefin Events – €4.1M
Yesterday, An Tánaiste, Simon Harris said the country is “in a healthy economic space but with dark clouds on the horizon” – as close as the establishment can get to acknowledging that US tariffs and other factors may be spelling doom for our ability to rely on bumper corporate tax receipts to fund the kind of State largesse that he and successive governments have happily indulged in to showcase their generosity with other people’s money – and with the country’s economic future.
One of the companies on the list above exemplifies the sheer scale of the state’s spending on runaway asylum provision: Mosney Unlimited (handily registered in the Isle of Man like so many others of the asylum providers making a killing here in recent years ) has made more than €200,000,000 (!) from asylum accommodation since 2002.
And all for people who – according to our Taoiseach – are mostly economic migrants, while Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, says that 80% of asylum applicants in January were rejected at first instance, though they will be entitled, with taxpayer funded NGO assistance, to appeal – and sometimes seemingly appeal endlessly.
The world must be laughing at us, while the companies filling their coffers are laughing all the way to the bank.