Alternative accommodation has been found at four different locations for 80 asylum seekers, who were being housed in tents at a Direction Provision Centre in Co Clare.
Speaking on Today with Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio 1, Minister for Integration Roderic O'Gorman said that many of the asylum seekers are now being housed at a Direct Provision Centre in Knockalisheen in Co Clare, with a “small number of people” being moved in to permanent accommodation.
Mr O’Gorman said no asylum seekers were in tents at present nationwide, and every effort was being made to ensure this solution would not be used again. He stressed that about 600 of the 63,000 being accommodated across Ireland were put in tents.
"This means that less than one percent of our total accommodation has been through tents. But still, that’s not an approach I want to be taking.
"We use tents because of the tightness of accommodation at that time and we’ve been working over the last number of weeks to move away from the use of tented accommodation and ensure that everybody can be accommodated indoors.
"All our use of tented accommodation has ceased. We had two other centres that we were using for international protection in Athlone and Kerry.
"We were able to close those in the last couple of weeks. We worked extremely hard to end that situation, and we have ended that situation," he said.
Mr O'Gorman said that the use of tented accommodation was indicative of the "real pressures that the system is under", and called the current influx of asylum seekers and refugees "the biggest humanitarian challenge our country has ever faced".
"It’s put a challenge on the system, and we continue to look to make sure we can provide shelter and safety. We won’t be using those tents again.
"We have bringing on further additional accommodation through a range of mechanisms. Every day teams within my department are looking at ways to increase the amount of accommodation we have to us.
"We have been opening new accommodation both for Ukrainians and international protection applicants across the country."
'Tight' accommodation situation
Minister O’Gorman said that they have been "upfront" with authorities in Ukraine in terms of how “tight” the accommodation situation is in this country, "[that] we are not always in a position to provide people with accommodation on the day they arrive".
Refugees are continuing to be accepted and processed at CityWest, Mr O'Gorman said.
He added no community "has a veto" in terms of new people arriving within their area. However, he agreed that his Department needs to do more in terms of providing information to communities in a timely manner.
"The vast majority of communities have been really strong in terms of their welcome and that’s certainly something we value. There has been an amazing response throughout our country.
"We have engaged with communities across the country where they have issues regarding the provision of accommodation, whether its Ukrainians or international protection applicants.
Mr O’Gorman said that the Government plans to advance more State provided accommodation next year.
“One of the greatest weaknesses of the system that we have been relying on is an overreliance on private provision of accommodation.
"We want to move away from that and the best way to move away from that is through the provision of State provided accommodation and looking at the building of reception and integration centres one of the key elements of the White Paper. We will be looking to advance that in 2023."
When asked if his workload was “extraordinary”, Mr O’Gorman said that his Department was "delivering across all elements at the same time".
"One of the requests I have made is that we are going to need additional staff within the Department to meet the very significant challenges in terms of meeting the needs of Ukrainians and continuing to deliver across the Department."
