Carol Nolan TD has made sharp criticisms of what she said is a failure by the government to carry out vetting of providers of asylum accommodation, saying that some of those involved were not business people but “gangsters”.
Speaking as the Minister for Justice introduced the International Protection Bill 2026 in the Dáil yesterday, the Offaly Independent said that an “urgent overhaul” was required of “both our dysfunctional immigration system and the IPAS system in terms of who is providing the accommodation”.
Nolan has been a vocal critic of what she sees as dysfunction in the immigration system for many years – and has often addressed the house in opposition to uncontrolled immigration.
She told the Dáil in a hard-hitting speech that she sought action and “a dramatic reduction in the numbers of economic migrants and in the numbers of bogus asylum seekers entering our country. I want no more excuses and deflection.”
“I have very serious concerns which I have raised many times in this House about the vetting, or lack of vetting, of bogus asylum seekers, the delays deporting asylum seekers with criminal pasts, many of whom come from safe countries, and no vetting of the providers of IPAS accommodation”, she added.
“They have been described here as businesspeople, but they are not all businesspeople. Some of these providers could be better described as gangsters, and have question marks over their suitability or the appropriateness of having those people involved in the provision of any type of accommodation. What vetting is being done there? I do not believe there is any vetting done there either in terms of the providers and who is involved,” she said.
“We need an urgent overhaul of both our dysfunctional immigration system and the IPAS system in terms of who is providing the accommodation. Are those people checked? My sense is that none of them were checked at any stage. Some, as I say, are totally unsuitable,” Deputy Nolan said.
“The people involved in the provision of IPAS accommodation, some of them gangsters and chancers, continue to profiteer from an unchecked, unregulated and broken system. This is extremely alarming. We need urgent action on this before it is too late.”
She said that the way “immigration and bogus asylum seekers have been managed to date is nothing short of a social and economic catastrophe”.
“I am utterly convinced this issue will come to define previous governments. Warning after warning was dismissed and was reframed. Warning after warning that the State was effectively being ripped off were ignored with the excuse that we were in an emergency and therefore proper controls did not apply. Billions have been spent and very likely billions more will be spent because this State has adopted the slowest possible approach to managing a crisis that has been plain for all to see except for those who wanted to push the de facto open border policies.”
“I have very serious concerns which I have raised many times in this House about the vetting, or lack of vetting, of bogus asylum seekers, the delays deporting asylum seekers with criminal pasts, many of whom come from safe countries, and no vetting of the providers of IPAS accommodation,” the Offaly TD said.
“If the Minister wants to see what talking tough and taking no meaningful action on the asylum chaos looks like and where it will lead to, then he may look no further than the UK. There the entire political establishment is being convulsed by defections from the establishment parties. The people are fed up of governments which promise much but do little but deliver tough-sounding rhetoric with no actions.”
“The same is true here,” she continued. “Our people here are angry at how unwilling or how powerless governments have been in dealing with this generational crisis. This Bill promises much, but my fear is that it will be bogged down in bureaucratic nonsense and loopholes sought and found by the overpaid NGOs which are determined to oppose all necessary reform.”
Billions have been spent by the government on asylum accommodation and services, with the bill for 2025 expected to outstrip the 2024 spend of more than €1 billion on international protection applicants alone – excluding Ukrainians.
The Minister had earlier told the Dáil when introducing the bill that this Government “also fundamentally believes in the right to claim asylum.”
“We will always uphold our obligation on this important principle of international law for the sake of those who need our protection. At the same time, migration and asylum have given rise to challenges not only for Ireland, but across the EU. Migration and asylum are shared challenges that are increasingly difficult for any one country to deal with acting alone in a globalised and interdependent world,” he said.
He said the Bill “delivers on the programme for Government commitment to implement the regulations and directives agreed by the EU by 12 June 2026” – and that “the overall objective of the Bill is to provide a fair, sustainable and efficient asylum procedure that is consistent with how asylum laws operate across the EU.”