Minister says 171 newly arrived refugees have not been offered accommodation 

Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman also confirmed €41m is owed to hotels across the State who are offering accommodation to Ukrainians

Integration Minister Roderic O'Gorman said the accommodation situation remained very challenging and it was not acceptable that 171 people could not be offered somewhere to stay by the State. Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins

Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman has said 171 refugees that have arrived in Ireland have not been offered accommodation by the State.

Mr O’Gorman also confirmed €41m is owed to hotels across the State who are offering accommodation to Ukrainians.

It comes as the Irish Examiner recently reported some hotels were awaiting payments of up to €400,000.

Mr O’Gorman said a staffing issue was causing the backlog of payments and staff are being moved around in his department to escalate the payment of invoices.

Speaking to RTÉ's News at One, Mr O’Gorman said he could not say when the transit hub at Citywest would reopen to give accommodation to international protection applicants because he did not have sight on when more accommodation would come on stream.

Currently, there are 750 staying at Citywest and it is still open for Ukrainians to be processed under the Temporary Protection Directive.

He said 171 people currently could not be offered accommodation on their arrival to the State but officials had taken their contact details. He said more than 100 people who initially arrived and had no accommodation have since been offered shelter.

He said these asylum seekers were being accommodated elsewhere, but some people were finding shelter themselves.

Mr O’Gorman said the accommodation situation remained very challenging and it was not acceptable that 171 people could not be offered somewhere to stay by the State.

He said the Government was also aware that a number of hotels that are offering rooms to international protection applicants will revert back to tourism in the coming months and this would result in the loss of a “significant number of beds”. 

He said hotels offering accommodation to Ukrainians have agreed to renew their contracts but “we’re still alive to risk” that some hotels may also revert to tourism.

He said more than €500m has already been paid out to hotels for accommodation and service purposes and the State has over 700 contracts with providers.