Asylum seekers arriving into Ireland face being homeless due to a lack of accommodation

Roderic O'Gorman said every effort will be made to offer accommodation to the most vulnerable, mainly women, children and people with disabilities. Photo: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos

Asylum seekers arriving in Ireland in the coming weeks face being homeless due to a lack of accommodation.

Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman has confirmed the Citywest Transit hub will be closed to newly arrived international protection applicants in the coming days.

He said every effort will be made to offer accommodation to the most vulnerable, mainly women, children and people with disabilities.

He admitted there is a “real risk” that people will end up on the streets because the Government will not be able to accommodate everyone.

Mr O’Gorman said others would be provided with food vouchers and would be contacted when accommodation becomes available.

This is the third time that the Government has been forced to close the hub to new arrivals but Mr O’Gorman said he expects the closure this time to be for a “longer period of time.”

The State is “entering a difficult number of weeks” for sourcing accommodation for people seeking international protection applicants, he told RTÉ News at One.

Mr O’Gorman indicated the shortage of accommodation will last a number of weeks into mid-February and said it is difficult to get “a line of sight” of the amount of space the State can secure to meet the number of new arrivals expected to come into the country.

The State is already housing 19,350 people seeking international protection and 52,800 Ukrainian refugees.

The first 200 modular homes will not be ready for occupation until Easter time, Mr O’Gorman said, which is a further delay to the homes which were already expected in November 2022 but were delayed until March this year.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin told the Dáil that the combination of the war in Ukraine, allied to climate change, conflict in other parts of the world, is causing "enormous pressures" on our asylum process which are unprecedented in terms of scale.

"It is not easy and it is now challenging but there are no easy solutions either and I am not going to pretend that there are," he said.