‘REAL PRESSURE’ | 

Emergency housing to be offered to 480 asylum seekers following Dublin violence

“The accommodation system is under real pressure right now. As long as people are being left unaccommodated, it’s not working as it should”

Yesterday at 19:03

The Government has said emergency accommodation will be provided for hundreds of asylum seekers who currently have no place to live in a matter of days.

Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman said on Monday that “several hundred” beds “came online” over the weekend and will be made available following violent scenes at a makeshift campsite in Dublin city centre on Friday evening.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on Monday, Minister O’Gorman confirmed that 480 international protection seekers are currently without accommodation.

He added that more offers are expected to be made in the next few weeks.

“The accommodation system is under real pressure right now. As long as people are being left unaccommodated, it’s not working as it should,” he said.

“We are responding to an unprecedented situation. We’re accommodating 84,000 people now between Ukrainian displaced persons and international protection applicants.

“As we know at the start of last year, we were accommodating 8,500 people.

“Irrespective of how robust the system you have, when you have that kind of increase, you’re going to put a strain on it. We see that same strain on systems across Europe.

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Scenes from Sandwith Street following confrontation involving asylum seekers sleeping rough

“We’re accommodating people in hotels and former barracks and in refurbished offices.”

Continuing, Minister O’Gorman said: “Over the next week, we’ll be in the position to make a significant amount of offers of accommodation to people who up to this point have been unaccommodated.

“As of the start of this weekend, there was (sic) just around 480 people who we haven’t been able to make an offer of accommodation to.