As we reported yesterday, the Public Accounts Committee was not allowed to discuss in public the details of rates that are paid to private companies who have state contracts to provide accommodation to Ukrainians under Temporary Protection here and to persons applying for International Protection.
Nonetheless, it was the first occasion on which there was a proper discussion of the overall finances involved on a macro level, and in fairness that was due to contributions from the Chair Brian Stanley and most members of the Committee.
Indeed, Sinn Féin’s John Brady spent his time attempting to recoup his street cred by complaining about what is going on in his own county of Wicklow in a manner that not so long ago would, if uttered by others, might have had him resorting very quickly to the Godwinian smear of For Roysh.
The amount of money being paid out for asylum accommodation alone is simply enormous. Even in 2022, the cost of Temporary Accommodation for the first wave of Ukrainians and the initial “post Covid” surge of others claiming asylum, often as we have seen on tenuous grounds, accounted for €893 million of the overall budget for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) of €2.8 billion.
Secretary General of the Department, Kevin McCarthy described how the weekly rate of IP applications had risen from 63 in 2022, to 250 per week in 2023 and that more than 5,000 had arrived in the first three months of this year. That is equal to a rate of more than 420 per week.
This has, as Gript in particular has chronicled, been a huge windfall for private providers of accommodation.. The cost has run into several billions and will continue to grow.
Wexford Independent TD Verona Murphy wondered how the rate per applicant was determined and claimed that whereas the provider of a room in a nursing home was in receipt of €900 per week, that it was €2,660 per week for a company providing a room for asylum seekers.
McCarthy made reference to the market determining what rates might be, but surely that market is being determined by the demand created by the state itself admitting so many applicants for asylum? In addition, they have made it clear that they are planning to take in tens of thousands more, with the recently announced 14,000 to 2028 surely no more than a guess given what has and is taking place.
The impression that has been given is that the state is planning to move more towards direct state provision, but as McCarthy and Department Assistant Secretary David Delaney admitted this will itself be largely dependent upon the private sector to whom the Department is already “reaching out” to.
That will involve, they admitted, buying existing hotel and other accommodation which led Labour Tipperary TD Alan Kelly to refer to what he said was the amusement of even government ministers at the notion that the state be in the business of buying up hotels. There have already been many “expressions of interest” they said from the private sector in anticipation of the 14,000+ new arrivals.
This is hardly surprising given the premium attached. Social Democrat TD Catherine Murphy noted that it was largely “the same groups of people” who were benefitting at the top end of the payments table, and that many of them seemed to know each other. This has been confirmed by Gript’s examination of some of the principals involved.
Murphy also wondered whether the Department conducted any deeper investigation into the companies other than ensuring that they were tax compliant.
She referred to how directors and even the ownership of companies seemed to constantly change, which raised the question as to whether some were no more than “front persons” acting to conceal the actual identity of the beneficial owners. Murphy compared the task of finding out about all of this to Lanigan’s Ball – a nod to the ‘stepping in and stepping out again’ of the well-known song.
That issue was also touched on by Verona Murphy who referred to “entities set up outside the jurisdiction” solely it would seem to take advantage of the accommodation provision and payments system. She said that the whole asylum business was “making oligarchs” of a small number of people.
Committee Chairperson Brian Stanley referred to the “ridiculous time” spent processing asylum applications and reference was made to one case which had taken 16 years to conclude. That ended with the person being granted leave to remain, which is most often not a recognition of the validity of an application for asylum but simply the state almost giving up and saving itself further time and money.
McCarthy referred to thousands of persons who were in IPAS accommodation for years as they appealed rejections and pursued appeals and judicial reviews. He made what in another context might be considered to be an amusing comment that those who are turned down at some stage “tend to leave our accommodation.”
Which elicited the rather bemused response from Stanley “move on where? Where do they go?” Well he might ask in many many cases. Maybe they leave, maybe they don’t. It’s all a bit of a mystery really as anyone who has been following our occasional series on deportation statistics will attest.
Anyway, the laugh is on us, and will continue to be unless more serious steps are taken to regain control over who is allowed to enter the Irish state and stay.