PAC to grill officials on refugee housing
SENIOR Department of Integration officials involved in the awarding of lucrative contracts to private companies to house refugees and asylum seekers are to be quizzed by the Dáil spending watchdog.
It comes after the Irish Mail on Sunday recently revealed details of multi-million-euro contracts awarded to private providers, some of whom hide their huge profits in offshore tax havens.
The revelations sparked an angry response from members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), who called for more scrutiny of how these contracts are awarded.
PAC deputy chair Catherine Murphy this weekend said officials from Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman’s department will appear before the watchdog in April.
The former Social Democrats co-leader said the committee will be looking into ‘how the accommodation is procured, what the rules and regulations are and how [the department] are signing contracts’.
She told the MoS: ‘I have asked before, what are the criteria [for awarding contracts]? And they [department officials] said they [companies providing housing] have to be tax-compliant.
‘This is all because it is being outsourced to the private sector. There will be really legitimate people there [among providers] with appropriate accommodation that is well managed.
‘But it also leaves it open for abuse as well. There is an awful lot of money involved.’
The Kildare North TD stressed that while the State is ‘obliged to spend money’ to provide accommodation to asylum seekers and refugees, there needs to be more scrutiny ‘about the controls’.
She said: ‘Are these contracts really with the person you have the contract with or with someone else? And where is the money [to acquire premises] coming
from? Unless you know [who the beneficial owners of these companies are] none of us can get to the bottom of who the beneficial owners are, which is a real conundrum.’
Last month, the MoS revealed that five firms were paid more than €100m between them in the first six months of 2023.
A total of 184 companies received more than €1m each after sharing a massive combined payment of €650,361,411.34. These multimillion payouts do not include the dozens of other firms and business people who were paid less than €1m.
Members of the PAC from across the political divide have expressed concern about the State’s response to the deepening asylum crisis.
On foot of a suggestion by committee member and Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon, the watchdog has agreed that the soaring asylum accommodation costs should be an area of
‘special focus’.
Questions have also been raised about how some contracts have been awarded to firms linked to intricate corporate networks made up of several companies that appear to be under the control of business people with no apparent assets.
A PAC source told the MoS: ‘It is a new phenomenon. It is almost a cottage industry in rural Ireland. The country is being scoured for old pubs and derelict hotels. It is lucrative too. There are a lot of people getting rich on this. There are people with no visible assets yet they are able to acquire buildings.’