Just under 400 direct provision residents, including 20 families at Hotel Killarney in Kerry, have been formally told by the International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) that their rooms will revert to catering for tourists at the end of March.
The residents have not been told where they are to be accommodated or whether they are being moved from Killarney. Formal notice of the residents having to leave the hotel was sent by the Department of Integration this week.
The hotel had signalled since January it is to return to tourism. The residents include men, women and family units. A number of children have secured places in local schools, some having to wait until January.
The hotel was at the centre of controversy last autumn after Ukrainian refugees were moved out to make way for international protection applicants. Most of the Ukrainian families have been accommodated locally in hotels.
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However, informed sources say the three other direct provision centres in Killarney are full. One centre near Hotel Killarney, Atlas House, which accommodates around 100 international protection applicants, also houses a number of people who have been granted refugee status. Those successful applicants cannot move out of the Atlas House because there is no available accommodation in Killarney.
Eight men were charged in January in connection with a violent incident on New Year’s Day at the reception centre, which resulted in four people needing hospital treatment.
A departmental spokesperson said at this stage it is not possible to say where the residents will be placed . However, as with other contracts coming to an end in April, “affected residents will be notified in advance of the move, and that those with children of school-going age will receive assistance from the IPAS resident welfare team in relation to school places in their new accommodation centre – and IPAS will work closely with all residents to minimise disruption as much as possible” .
“All affected residents will receive a letter in the coming days advising them that their current temporary accommodation is coming to an end but that they will be re-accommodated in another location over the coming weeks – at this time it is not possible to confirm where the residents will be dispersed to due to the ongoing shortage of accommodation in the IPAS accommodation portfolio due to the unprecedented numbers arrived since the beginning of 2022,” the statement continued.
Meanwhile, the notice sent to residents at Killarney Hotel states the contract with the hotel was coming to an end. No exact final date is given for the contract . Local sources indicate this is the end of March and the hotel is reopening towards the end of April.
Residents will be moved from the hotel over the coming weeks, according to the notice.
The IPAS operations team apologised for the disruption and said it would do everything they could to minimise this.