Irish Examiner View: Profiting from asylum seekers a lucrative business for many hotels

A protest against direct provision takes place at Leinster House in 2020. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

It is Government policy that direct provision will end by December 2024 and be replaced by a system of mostly “own-door” accommodation facilities for asylum seekers. But before it ends, the system is readying for one last costly splurge.

The International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) has just closed off a tender for another panel of hoteliers to provide accommodation over the next 34 months, which will cost up to €500m. A large slice of this will be paid to hoteliers, according to tender documents.

IPAS, the office of the Department of Children that houses asylum seekers, is currently paying hotels about €100 per night for rooms.

Annual costs have ballooned beyond €183m, well past double what it was in 2018. IPAS has signed accommodation deals with scores of hotels in the pandemic — it has six exclusive hotels on its books in the Dublin area alone, with many more taking asylum seekers on an ad hoc basis alongside commercial customers.

IPAS says there have been 3,300 new arrivals seeking asylum since October. The system is straining like never before, forcing it to offer ever more attractive deals to hoteliers.

Ipas will not discuss its contracts with individual hoteliers, but it seems the State could soon be paying close to €295,000 a week for the use of one hotel. That comes to more than €15.3m per year. 

Accommodating people fleeing war and misery appears to be a very lucrative business for private operators.