Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman has said protests outside two centres earmarked for use by exclusively male asylum seekers had no influence on his department instead deciding to house families in the buildings.
The Government has faced criticism for alleged u-turns after the Department of Integration scrapped plans to house 50 male asylum seekers at a former hotel in Co Mayo and the Capuchin Friary in Carlow Town, following protests at both buildings.
The department said it now intends to accommodate families including children at the sites instead.
Mr O’Gorman rejected assertions that the Government had bowed to pressure from local protests.
Asked if the changes for the centres was a message that the department would change policy again in the face of protests, he said: “It’s not because in both of those locations, the change in policy was soley to do with our need to accommodate families.”
Mr O’Gorman has said his department is under “very significant pressure” to provide accommodation for families and for female applicants.
He also said it is not in a position to provide accommodation for all male applicants, adding: “That’s not a situation that I want.”
Asked if the protests had any impact on his department’s decisions, Mr O’Gorman said: “No.”
The minister added: “If we have hadn’t made those changes in Carlow and Ballinrobe, we would have seen families left unaccommodated.
“It was an operational decision and the officials in my department have to have that flexibility to deal with the needs of the people who are before us on that particular day.”
A protest has also been under way in Roscrea, Co Tipperary over plans to house family applicants in a hotel in the town.
Defending the plan, Mr O’Gorman said: “I absolutely understand that where a hotel in a town’s use changes, I understand that has an impact, that’s why it’s important that we better plan where we provide accommodation.”
He added: “We are responding to a humanitarian crisis and in the situation in Rosscrea, we are responding to the needs of families to ensure that they will be accommodated.
“As long as people continue to seek international accommodation, we will have to do that.”
He said the approach his department needs to move to a national, longer-term planned approach nationally rather than the “reactive” method currently being employed.
Speaking on Newstalk, he said: “We’ve had to take accommodation where we can find it because of the significant need and the significant increase in demand both in terms of Ukrainian and international-protection applicants.
“We need to move to a more planned approach where we identify – across the country – a number of locations for accommodation centres where the State is in control of those.”
The department expects that Ireland will see approximately 15,000 international protection applicants every year.
Mr O’Gorman said: “It is a still a small number compared to the amounts that many other European countries provide asylum to and it’s also a small number in terms of a country of a population of five million people.”
The minister also dismissed suggestions there was discussion about having a “harder policy” on migration, which he characterised as currently being a “rules-based system”.
