Department 'getting better value now' on accommodation for asylum seekers, PAC told

Secretary general at the Department of Justice, Oonagh McPhillips, said: 'The prices paid from 2022 onwards, we wouldn’t expect to pay those prices again.' File photo: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie

The Department of Justice insists it is getting “better value for money” from its spending on accommodation for asylum seekers — but cannot quantify to what extent that is the case.

Secretary general of the department, Oonagh McPhillips, told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee that the department is achieving a greater return on international protection accommodation in 2025 than it was in 2022, when the system came under intense pressure by housing asylum seekers and refugees from the war in Ukraine.