A High Court action arguing that the State breached male asylum seekers’ human rights by leaving them without accommodation was “rightly taken”, the minister in charge of the responsible department at the time has said.
Roderic O’Gorman, who was Minister for Equality and Integration in the last government, said pressure provided by last year’s successful case by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission helped him argue at Cabinet that state-owned land must be used to shelter hundreds of homeless male asylum seekers.
Tented accommodation was later opened at Crooksling and on the site of the former Central Mental Hospital, both Co Dublin, and at Trudder House in Newtownmountkennedy, Co Wicklow, enabling clearances of hundreds of tents from Dublin city centre.
“The previous government were rightly taken to the court and found to be in breach of human rights when we weren’t providing people with accommodation,” Mr O’Gorman, who is now the Green Party’s sole TD in the Dáil, told The Irish Times.
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The State is now appealing the High Court decision last August that the failure to provide for the basic needs of homeless asylum seekers was a breach of their fundamental rights.
Mr O’Gorman said he was frustrated as minister when the courts also “stymied” his efforts to open more accommodation.
“The court found the department and state liable there, but when the department tried to use planning law to move quickly the court also blocks us there, saying, ‘You can’t do that’,” he said.
“So, the court has rightly identified an emergency, but stymied us in our efforts to move quickly to address that.”
Asked about controversy around the monthly payment to hosts housing Ukrainian refugees and whether it should continue after next month, he said a review under way on its future may recommend it is cut.
Among issues around the accommodation recognition payment (ARP) – worth €800 tax-free a month to hosts – was its impact on local housing markets. This was being examined in consultation with local authorities, he said.
The principle of the payment is still hugely important
The ARP was introduced in 2022 at a rate of €400 a month and was later increased in a bid to make it more attractive to homeowners. It is due to end on March 31st – a source of anxiety to almost 35,500 Ukrainians living in about 19,000 hosts’ homes.
This is an increase from 16,000 hosts at the end of September, and from just over 4,000 at the start of 2023, with the cost to the Exchequer now more than €15 million a month.
“There may need to be some change to the rate. The legislation was designed in such a way that the impact of the payment on the wider housing market should always be fully understood,” Mr O’Gorman said.
“While the research may show there is some case to alter the rate of payment, the principle of the payment is still hugely important.”
Any reduction must take into account the potential impact on vulnerable cohort of people, he said. He would not support it being ended.
There would continue to be “consolidation” of hotel accommodation for Ukrainians, he said, noting the State commissioned “tens of thousands of rooms ... in hotels and guest houses”.
As need for these reduced, “the State can’t be paying for all those rooms, so, as hotels come out of contract, if there are three hotels half-full of Ukrainians in a town there is going to have to be some consolidation”.
Reiterating his dismay that immigration issues were now responsibility of a junior minister in government, he said multiple crises in past two years were averted only because he was a senior minister at Cabinet at the time.
“This is no disrespect to [Minister of State for Migration] Colm Brophy,” he said. “A junior minister will never have the opportunity for the level of engagement with the Taoiseach that a senior minister will have.”
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