Independent TD for Offaly, Carol Nolan has sharply criticised a government decision to bring 500 pre-approved refugees to Ireland through a United Nations resettlement program.
As reported by the Irish Times, the government is looking to secure accommodation for the 500 refugees with the Department of Justice releasing a €61 million tender for accommodation for people who come to Ireland from countries such as Lebanon and Jordan under the Irish Refugee Protection Programme (IRPP).
The program has seen more than 4,500 such individuals resettled in Ireland to date having been recognised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as refugees under the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention.
Reacting to the news of a further 500 arrivals, Deputy Nolan, who previously criticised the State’s no-cap invitation to Ukrainian Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection in circumstances where accommodation was scarce amid the pre-existing housing crisis, described the news as “reckless and counterproductive”.
Speaking to Gript, she said, “The insistence that we take another 500 refugees, at a minimum, under commitments the State entered into as part of a programme established in 2015 is reckless and counterproductive.”
She said this “takes no account of the fact that in 2015 the numbers arriving here through international protection or refugee programmes was a fraction of the tidal wave of applicant numbers that have overwhelmed and flooded our system, bringing it to the point of collapse.”
Commenting on the asylum system where approximately 33,000 international protection applicants are being housed by the state, Deputy Nolan said, “500 today quickly becomes 5000 tomorrow. Where does it end?”
Speaking of the scarcity of accommodation for those claiming refugee status in circumstances where the state has been unable to provide accommodation to 3,000 such individuals as of December 2024, she said, “When does some degree of sanity around capacity assessment enter into it? We already have complete chaos in our ipas and refugee system. Do we really need to be adding to that?”
In reference to Taoiseach Micheál Martin admitting that the “majority” of those coming to Ireland claiming to be fleeing persecution and war in reality being economic migrants, she said, “While of course we must assess real levels of refugee need, the unpalatable fact remains that significant numbers are abusing the refugee programmes both here and abroad.”
The Taoiseach’s comments came after Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, said that “there are too many seeking international protection who are not entitled to it.”
Deputy Nolan concluded by asking, “What guarantees do we have about the authenticity of these people’s applications? How do we know they are not simply piggybacking on a scheme with ulterior motives?” she said.