Dr Ciara Smyth

The protests and subsequent arson at the Ross Lake House Hotel in Co Galway have brought sharply into focus (again) the issue of asylum seeker accommodation and the bigger question of whether Ireland is taking in too many asylum seekers. The claim is that the inn or even Ireland is full.

There has been a marked increase in the number of people claiming asylum in Ireland. Last year saw 13,645 asylum applications being made in Ireland – a 68% increase on the previous year. This places Ireland in the top half of EU Member States as an asylum destination (12^th out of 27). Similar numbers seem to be applying this year.

However, if we pan out to look at the past decade, Ireland has been in the bottom half of EU countries as an asylum destination for most of the time. Moreover, there is still a huge gulf between Ireland and the top asylum-hosting countries in the EU. Ireland received just 1.4% of asylum applications in the EU last year, compared to Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Italy which, between them, received almost 75% of asylum applications. Therefore, although the numbers have increased dramatically, they have increased from an extremely low base. When further compared with impoverished asylum-hosting countries in the global south, any suggestion that Ireland is overburdened does not hold up.

Nonetheless, given the accommodation crisis in Ireland, it is understandable that some people perceive that asylum seekers are ‘competing’ with Irish citizens for scarce resources. However, the two problems – the accommodation crisis facing Irish people and the accommodation crisis facing asylum seekers – are distinct from one another, even if they overlap. The former problem is linked to successive government policies relating to homelessness, housing delivery, planning laws, house and rent prices and supports for buyers and renters. The latter problem is a product of direct provision.

Direct provision is the Irish system of asylum accommodation that has existed since 2000, whereby private contractors profit from providing bed and board to asylum seekers. The accommodation is often over-crowded, the environment unsafe for children, the food unnourishing and the general conditions a risk to mental health. The weekly allowance paid to asylum seekers places them below the poverty line. Since the government is reliant on the private market for supply, it cannot guarantee enough direct provision places. As a result, asylum seekers are also placed in emergency accommodation or, increasingly, have to sleep rough. Direct provision has been the subject of numerous critical domestic and international reports, not one but two major government reviews and a government white paper. It is slated for abolition in the current programme for government.

The alternative vision, which was settled on before the increase in asylum numbers and the arrival of people fleeing the war in Ukraine (about which more below), was to source and build permanent State-owned short-term accommodation, run on a not-for-profit basis. After three months applicants would move to own-door accommodation under the responsibility of local authorities and be integrated into the social welfare system. This would be delivered by a ‘whole of government approach’, involving all government departments as well as state agencies and local authorities. This approach never materialised. Instead the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and his department have been left to grapple with the issue on their own. Meanwhile, the alternative vision has been overtaken by the numbers and overshadowed by events, like Ross Lake House.

Certainly, operational lessons can be learned from the Ross Lake House experience – about local consultation, about garda consultation, about the supports that asylum seekers and local communities need. But at the strategic level, the government needs to recommit to and resolve the long-standing issue of direct provision in light of current numbers.

The picture is complicated by the arrival of people fleeing the war in Ukraine. More than 100,000 Ukrainians have come to Ireland under EU temporary protection since the war began just under two years ago. According to Eurostat statistics from the end of October, this places Ireland in the top half (10 out of 27) of EU hosting countries.

The EU Temporary Protection Directive provides a framework for Member States to provide emergency protection when there is a mass influx of asylum seekers from a particular country. The advantage of it is that Ukrainians as a group are deemed to be in need of temporary protection, which prevents the asylum decision-making bodies from being overwhelmed.  The disadvantage is that the directive fails to establish a burden-sharing mechanism and leaves it to Member States to decide on accommodation and supports.

Although the Temporary Protection Directive has been in existence since 2001, this is the first time it has been triggered. Therefore, how Member States operate it is largely an experiment. It may well be that Ireland’s initial response – which was to treat Ukrainians far more generously than ‘ordinary’ asylum seekers – has acted as a ‘pull factor’. In hindsight, it may have been preferable to treat the Ukrainian cohort the same as everyone else and raise the pitiful standard of support for all asylum seekers. The government now intends to do the former but not the latter. When its plan to funnel newly-arriving Ukrainians into private-rented accommodation after 90 days comes into effect in the New Year, this may add to the accommodation crisis, at least in the short term.

In short, it’s complex. The existing housing crisis, the delayed abolition and replacement of direct provision, and the increase in numbers of asylum seekers and Ukrainians have all intersected in a very public way. But the answer is not to close the door to people who are seeking protection. The answer is to redesign the inn.

Dr Ciara Smyth is director of the LL.M in International Migration and Refugee Law and Policy at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway, and was a member of the McMahon Working Group on Direct Provision.