Costs to house asylum seekers surged by €14 million

ASYLUM SEEKER accommodation costs surged by €14 million last year as would-be refugees rushed to “beat the deadline” for an Irish born child, the Justice Department admitted last night.

Housing outlays soared from a planned-for €69m to over €83m, partly due to a clamour to reach Ireland before the contentious citizenship referendum, the department’s Secretary General Sean Aylward told TDs.

Explaining the increase to the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee, Mr Aylward said asylum accommodation was always a fluid area of expenditure, but special factors caused such a big spike last year.

“They included the referendum which was flagged well in advance and people rushing to, as it were, to beat the deadline with the irish born child. Factors like that contributed to the situation,” he said.

The referendum outcome meant that children of foreign nationals did not automatically receive Irish citizenship.

Mr Aylward insisted it was always problematic to plan expenditure in this area as it was never clear who would “pitch up” in the Republic and demand refuge.

The committee also heard that it is costing taxpayers €360,000 a year to keep Spike Island prison empty.

TD’s were told €30,000 a month was being spent on the disused Cork facility, including keeping a ferry link to the mainland in operation.

Prison Service director general Brian Purcell told TDs, who questioned why a jail with good education and sanitation facilities had been closed, that the site would become the focal point for the prison service in the south when it re-opened as a model unit to house inmates.