Over 370 asylum seekers now accommodated in East Cork hotel 

Earlier this year, Ukrainian residents of the Quality Hotel in Youghal were told they would have to vacate the location, with the hotel then set to be repurposed as an IPA-only accommodation centre. Picture: Dan Linehan

More than 370 international protection applicants are now being accommodated at the Quality Hotel in East Cork, despite the eviction of Ukrainian refugees from the same site having been paused.

Some 374 asylum seekers, the majority female, have moved to the Youghal site in recent weeks. Close to 140 are children, while the international protection applicants are from multiple different countries, including Nigeria, Bangladesh, Jordan, South Africa, Georgia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

At the current daily allowance rate for accommodating international protection applicants of €84, the new influx of residents equates to additional income of €31,416 per day — or just under €220,000 per week — for the owners of the centre.

There were already roughly 450 Ukrainian beneficiaries of temporary protection (BOTP) living at the hotel, which has been closed for tourist bookings since early 2022, when the new tranche of asylum seekers arrived on site.

One local source said: 

The Ukrainians when they arrived first came in bus loads. The IPA applicants were different, they came in taxis, and their numbers are growing constantly.

Earlier this year, the Ukrainian residents of the hotel were told they would shortly have to vacate the location in order to be accommodated elsewhere, with the hotel then set to be repurposed as an IPA-only accommodation centre.

The State’s budget for housing Ukrainian refugees has been slashed for this year by close to 60% from its 2023 figure, down from €1.1bn two years ago to €456m.

Separately, the average cost to the State of accommodating individual asylum seekers has risen by nearly 50% over the past two years, meaning accommodating them is now far more lucrative than Ukrainians for operators.

The cost to house international protection applicants rose from €57 a day in 2022 to €84 in 2024, the Department of Integration said.

Before the change of use of the hotel was put on hold, the Department said the “provider at this site had expressed an interest in providing accommodation for international protection applicants following the end of the beneficiaries of temporary protection contract”.

A spokesperson for the Department of Integration acknowledged that “some Ukraine-contracted properties have been accommodating international protection applicants in vacancies within their centre since 2024”.

“This is the case at the Quality Hotel in Youghal,” the spokesperson said. They declined to comment as to whether or not the Quality Hotel’s contract is to be renewed when it expires due to 'commercial sensitivities'.

The removal of the Ukrainians was put on hold in late January by the Department following an outcry locally on behalf of the 450 residents — including close to 150 children — who would have been displaced at short notice, a proposal described at the time as “inhumane” by local school principal Eoghan Rua O’Neill.

Meanwhile, last week the Irish Examiner reported the confusion which surrounds who the owners of the Quality Hotel itself actually are.

Despite reports locally that the building had been acquired by new ownership in April 2022, various sources and local representatives in the area have been unable to identify the current owners of the Quality Hotel.

The official land registry record for the hotel notes the building was first acquired, from the National Asset Management Agency, in June 2015 by a Swiftcastle Limited, with no further change in ownership noted in the interim.