Minister to seek €500m bailout to house refugees
Department conf irms costs mushroomed to €1bn by end of August
INTEGRATION Minister Roderic O’Gorman will require a massive €500m bailout to provide accommodation for Ukrainian refugees between now and the end of the year, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
It comes as new figures show the Government significantly underestimated the number of Ukrainians who would seek refuge here following the Russian invasion of their country.
A total of €641m was allocated to Mr O’Gorman’s department in Budget 2023 for providing accommodation and related costs such as transport and ‘other wraparound services’.
But in response to queries from the MoS, the Department of Integration confirmed this figure had mushroomed to ‘a little under €1bn’ by the end of August.
As the numbers arriving in Ireland continue to rise, Government sources said Mr O’Gorman will require a bailout of at least €500m just to cover the cost of housing Ukrainian refugees this year.
This is around ten times higher than the interim bailout currently being sought by RTÉ.
Last week the MoS revealed Ireland is on course to have more than 100,000 Ukrainian war refugees by the end of the year. According to estimates provided by the Department of Social Welfare, the welfare bill for Ukrainian refugees will reach €480m this year – exactly double the figure provided for in 2022.
‘A bailout is needed to help get this ship in order’
It means the State will have to pay out an extra €740m to provide accommodation and welfare for Ukrainians above what it originally budgeted for.
A spokesman for Mr O’Gorman confirmed his department ‘is currently preparing final year estimates’ for the cost of housing Ukrainians ‘with a view to revising its formal allocation ask in this regard’.
In a statement to the MoS, the spokesman said: ‘While no final estimate has been concluded yet, it is evident that expenditure will continue in a similar vein to end of year, assuming no significant change in arrival numbers for the remainder of the year.
‘The minister will be outlining his financial requirement to the end of
2023 to the Dáil Select Committee meeting, currently scheduled for September 26.’
Given that the department is already €360m over budget with four months of the year remaining, a Government source said: ‘A bailout of anything up to half a billion-plus will be required to get the ship in order.’
This deficit was signalled in the Government’s mid-term expenditure review, which noted Mr O’Gorman’s department was €458m over budget for all services.
This is an even higher deficit than that recorded by the cash-strapped Department of Health, which was €328m over budget by the halfway point in the year.
Figures provided by the Department of Integration confirm the overall number of refugees being accommodated by the State has increased by more than 1,000% since February 2022.
The department said the State is now accommodating 93,920 people, which includes ‘those fleeing Ukraine (BOTPs) and International Protection Applicants (IPAs)’.
It added this ‘compares with over 8,575 at the end of February 2022’.
The department said the number of refugees and asylum seekers currently in the country ‘includes over 70,340 Ukrainian people who have sought accommodation from the State and over 23,185 International Protection applicants currently in IPAs accommodation’.
It confirmed €356.6m was spent providing IPAs accommodation for 19,202 people last year.
And since then, the department added: ‘Over 800 accommodation contracts have been put in place with over 49,330 beds in hotels, hostels, commercial self-catering accommodation and certain emergency or repurposed settings.’
Of the remaining refugees, the department said: ‘Just over 8,340 people are in homes offered by the Irish public’ and ‘sporting facilities, army and tented facilities are also being used to provide shelter’.
As of September 11, ‘over 4,370 people’ are being accommodated under the Department of Housing’s ‘Offer a Home Scheme’.
Some 647 refugees were being housed in tents by the middle of the month. These include 291 Ukrainian refugees, 243 of whom are camped at the Electric Picnic site in Stradbally, Co. Laois. Another 48 Ukrainians are being accommodated in tents at Columb Barracks in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath.
Underlining the challenges in providing housing for the refugee population, the department said: ‘Access to suitable accommodation is severely constrained [and] the number of IPAs and Ukrainian BOTPs arriving in Ireland is expected to remain at elevated levels for the foreseeable future.’
Defending the use of office buildings and sports facilities to house refugees, the department said ‘these options are necessary in order to provide shelter to IPAs, to meet basic needs and to prevent homelessness’.
A spokesman added: ‘The department has reached out to other Government departments such as the Department of Education for school and third-level institution facilities; the Department of Defence for unused barracks and buildings; the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media for sporting and arts facilities; the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, and the Office of Public Works for buildings that can be used to accommodate people.
‘The challenge faced in meeting
‘Necessary to meet basic needs’
the accommodation needs of all those fleeing the war in Ukraine, as well as people applying for international protection, has required a whole-of-government response to identify possible accommodation.’
With no end in sight to the war in Ukraine, concern is growing in Government about the long-term cost of hosting refugees.
The extra €500m required to house Ukrainians until the end of the year comes as Finance Minister Michael McGrath this week warned that next month’s Budget will not contain as many once-off measures as last year’s.
A senior Government source said: ‘The costs of refugee provision are poised to soar past the €2bn mark. The problem is we don’t yet know where the floor is.’