More than 130 properties offered for IP accommodation as Government looks to buy, not rent
More than 100 properties have been offered to the State following the latest push by Government to purchase large properties for asylum seeker accommodation.
A spokeswoman for Minister for Justice
Jim O'Callaghan
said 131 submissions were made in response to a call for properties for international protection accommodation to 'sell or lease'.
The preference was to purchase, she said. 'That is the direction we are going.'
Offers were being 'worked through and assessed', meaning it was not possible to say how many of the 131 had been offered for sale rather than lease. The spokeswoman could also not say if they were spread across every county or concentrated in a smaller number.
READ MORE
Not all would be suitable, the spokeswoman said, adding that they were being examined for building compliance, fire and other regulatory issues.
Last Tuesday, Mr O'Callaghan confirmed plans to purchase
Citywest Hotel in Dublin for more than €148 million
to make it a permanent processing centre for international protection applicants.
This would contribute to his plan to provide 14,000 State-owned beds for asylum seekers by 2028 rather than relying on private providers and would 'deliver significant long-term savings to the State as its moves from licensing to ownership,' a department spokesman said.
The 764-bed hotel and conference centre, which has been leased by the State since 2020, had capacity to accommodate 'approximately 2,300 people between the hotel and the convention centre', the spokesman said.
The latest invitation for submissions, published on the Government's E-tender website, seeks 'expressions of interest from property owners, private developers and building contractors who are interested in selling or leasing existing properties or buildings in turnkey condition [and] existing properties that require upgrading/refurbishment/renovation'.
'All properties acquired through this expression of interest process will be to provide accommodation for international protection (IP) applicants and must be on the terms of vacant possession,' the notice says.
According to tender documents, properties that will not be considered are buildings set aside for social housing; accommodation planned for use by other arms of Government; student accommodation; and nursing homes which are currently operating.
State-owned properties will be directly managed by the
International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS)
.
As of early 2025, IPAS was providing accommodation for more than 33,000 people across 325 accommodation centres.
Mr O'Callaghan said purchasing Citywest was 'a hugely significant step' towards reforming the international protection system – part of which was a 'stable and sustainable accommodation network'.
This was necessary to bring Ireland's system into compliance with the EU Asylum and Migration Pact which comes into force next year, he said.
It will require international protection applications to be processed within three to six months, fingerprinting and photographing of adult and child applicants and the establishment of designated accommodation centres.
'State-owned centres are part of the Government's long-term plan to reduce the reliance on private accommodation providers in communities resulting in better value for money of public funds and a more efficient international protection system,' Mr O'Callaghan said.
News of the Citywest purchase
sparked protests by some local residents
.
Protesters claimed to have gathered more than 8,000 signatures of people against the move by going door-to-door in Saggart, Rathcoole and Citywest. 'Ninety per cent of the doors we called to signed that petition. It shows that 90 per cent of people in the areas around here do not want this,' said Amanda Higgins at a demonstration outside Leinster House on Wednesday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
House raffles are a big, beautiful, awful sign of the times
'There are days I am still in disbelief that it happened and it actually happened to me. I don't want to say I believe in miracles, but I always try and give it a go to see what happens. I'm over the moon,' delighted homeowner Imelda Collins told The New York Times this week. The miracle she had experienced was not, although you might be forgiven for making the assumption in this broken housing market of ours, managing to buy a house , but succeeding in selling one. Collins's joy becomes a bit easier to understand when you see the figures involved. A two-bedroom cottage on 1.75 acres in Leitrim which she bought three years ago for €133,000 and spent €147,000 restoring has just grossed her €1.2 million. She did this by selling it in an online raffle hosted by a UK-based company, shifting 206,815 tickets priced at €5.92 a pop. The €1.2 million doesn't go straight into her pocket – there were marketing costs of €25,000 along the way, €2,600 in affiliate fees, and she has agreed to pay the winner's stamp duty and legal fees as part of the prize. Raffall, the lottery agent she chose (there are several based in the UK, where the raffles are classed as 'prize competitions'), takes 10 per cent. Then there's 33 per cent capital gains tax. READ MORE She had hoped to net €400,000 after costs on a house she reckons is worth €300,000. Instead, she'll walk away with over half a million – more than enough to fund her planned move to Italy. Collins is so thrilled by her success, she's considering abandoning plans to teach English and become a full-time internet marketer. The winner, Kathleen Spangler, a 29-year-old US marine corps officer, is ecstatic too. Coincidentally, as she told The New York Times, she applied for her Irish citizenship through lineage on her father's side last year. Raffall must also be chuffed with its 10 per cent. And even the losers are only out by €6 each. This can be read two ways: as the a heart-warming tale of a clever woman using her entrepreneurial flair and marketing skills to shift a house in Leitrim for four times its value and simultaneously making a young family's dreams come true. And no one really loses out; at least, not by very much. Or – miserable killjoy that I am, the way I can't help reading it – as a bleak statement about the housing dystopia we are experiencing. House raffles are a big, beautiful, awful idea. Their popularity is a grim reflection on a property market in which your best prospect of owning a house may well be to win one in a lottery. In 1984, George Orwell wrote about the lottery run by the Ministry of Plenty as a way of preventing 'the proles' from dwelling on the misery of their existence. 'It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant.' [ How to give yourself the best chance of buying a home amid Ireland's housing crisis Opens in new window ] If the odds of today's house lotteries are not as small as in Orwell's world, where the largest prizes do not exist at all, they're still less than spectacular. The majority of houses put up for raffle do not meet the minimum threshold of ticket sales. Raffall's founder and chief executive Stelios Kounou told The New York Times that 18 houses have been sold so far on the platform, while 50 others did not make their target. House lotteries may feel like a contemporary antidote to a modern affliction, but they are not a new idea – though the last time they got this level of attention might also have been the last time decent housing was this difficult to access in Ireland. In 1948, a giant house raffle was held in Dublin by the government of the day, when families on the social housing list were offered a chance to win one of between 220 and 250 brand new houses in Ballyfermot, according to historian Cathy Scuffil, who says there were lines of prams up and down Dawson Street. 'Every time somebody's name was called out, a big cheer would go up,' she said. Occasional 'newly wed draws' were held up to the 1970s for recently married couples on the housing list in Dublin. As a means of getting on the housing ladder, it probably beats bidding against wealthy Americans on a cottage in Leitrim. Today's house lotteries often inspire scepticism online, though, unlike in Orwell's dark vision, the prizes are real – a house if enough tickets are sold, a pile of cash if they're not. That is a fairly big qualifier. If the minimum number of tickets are not sold, the owner can cancel the raffle and keep 40 per cent of the funds and the house, giving 50 per cent of the cash to the winning ticket holder. Or they can give the house away anyway and keep more of the money. In Collins's case, if she had not met her goal of 150,000 tickets, she planned to give 40 per cent to the winner. [ Dolores McNamara: Whatever happened to the €115m lotto winner? Opens in new window ] On Raffall right now, you can buy a ticket for a semi-d in Yorkshire, apparently being raffled for the second time ('after the previous winner received the alternative huge cash prize option'), a villa with a pool in the Algarve or a beachfront villa on the island of Samui. Presumably most sellers are well-meaning people who want to try to pay off their mortgage, but it is not terribly difficult to imagine someone unscrupulous setting a wildly unrealistic ticket sales target – and pocketing 40 per cent of the cash when they don't make it. Still, browsing the listings, it's hard for even this sceptical prole to resist the temptation to splurge €6 on a ticket or two.
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
TV guide: The Bear returns, and the other best new shows to watch on RTÉ, Disney+, and Netflix this week
Pick of the week Natasha Wednesday, RTÉ One, 9.35pm In 2022 Natasha O'Brien was violently assaulted on a street in Limerick, in a random attack that left her bleeding and unconscious. The attacker, Cathal Crotty , was a serving soldier in the Defence Forces, and there was a public outcry when he received a suspended sentence for his cowardly and brutal act. This documentary follows O'Brien's subsequent refusal to stay silent about her treatment at the hands of a deeply flawed Irish legal system, and her subsequent battle to get justice for the trauma which was inflicted upon her. Thanks to her relentless campaigning, the DPP appealed Crotty's sentence and he was sentenced to two years in prison. With help from other women who shared their stories of facing their attackers in court, and from politicians including Labour leader Ivana Bacik and expert criminologist Dr Ian Marder, O'Brien looks at ways the system can be reformed to take ensure that victims' voices are heard. Highlights From that Small Island: The Story of the Irish Sunday, RTÉ One, 6.30pm From that Small Island: Marion Casey in New York Nigel Farage can't seem to understand why Ireland would not want to join with the UK and leave the European Union; perhaps he should watch this third episode of this landmark historical series, as it might explain why his Irexit idea went down like a lead balloon. The 17th century saw mass migration of Irish to continental Europe, displaced by the brutal conquest by Oliver Cromwell, and this episode tracks the first diaspora as they set up new lives in various European countries. The programme also follows the Irish who signed up to French, Spanish and Austrian armies in the wake of the Williamite wars at the end of the 17th century, and became known as the Wild Geese. It marked the beginning of centuries-long ties between Ireland and Europe that will take more than a few bellowing Brexiteers to break. The programme, narrated by Colin Farrell, also looks at the life of anti-slavery campaigner Daniel O'Connell, known as the Liberator, and how he influenced black abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass. Aistear an Amhráin Monday, RTÉ One, 7pm This series looking at the stories behind well-known songs ends with one of Ireland's most beloved bangers, An Poc ar Buile. The song was recorded in 1962 by Seán Ó Sé, and became an instant classic, but there's a tale to the tune that dates from the 17th century. The song about a mad billy goat was written in the 1940s by Donal Ó Mulláin and became associated with Puck Fair in Killorglin, Co Kerry, but the original poem it was based on has a darker meaning. An Boc ar Buile, written in the 1600s, was about a local landlord trying to exercise his right to have sexual relations with a tenant's bride on her wedding night. Given recent stories about landlords demanding sex from tenants as payment for rent, maybe the original version is due a revisit. The Gilded Age Monday, Sky Atlantic & Now, 9pm The Gilded Age Long before Sex and the City, New York was ruled by an elite coterie of well-got women, all vying for power and position in the upper echelons of high society in Upper East Side Manhattan of the 1880s. The Gilded Age is set during a period of huge transformation, when old money is under attack from a new generation of upwardly mobile industrialists and entrepreneurs, all hoping to buy their way into privilege. Louisa Jacobson stars as Marian Brook, a newcomer in New York society who arrives in the midst of a social war between the old-money Van Rhijn-Brooks and the new-money Russell family. Marian must quickly learn the rules of the game – and make up a few of her own – if she is to survive in this cut-throat world. Cynthia Nixon from SATC and Christine Baranski costar, and series three takes up the story in the aftermath of the so-called Opera War, which has given the Russells the social advantage. How will the old-money crowd hit back? This could turn into an epic confrontation. READ MORE Death in the Desert: The Nurse Helen Mystery Monday, Channel 4, 9pm Helen Smith was a young nurse working in Saudi Arabia in 1979, enjoying her adventure and making new friends in a culture very different from her own. At just 23 years old, however, Helen died in mysterious circumstances. The official story was that she fell from a balcony at a party, and her death was ruled an accident, but questions lingered over the lack of a thorough police investigation and whether her death really was accidental. This documentary looks back on Helen's life in Saudi Arabia and the political and cultural climate of the time, and tries to uncover what really happened on that balcony more than 45 years ago. Amol Rajan Goes to the Ganges Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm Amol Goes to the Ganges The Maha Kumbh Mela Festival in northern India is the world's largest religious festival, and the biggest gathering of human beings on the planet, attended by almost 500 million people from around the globe – more than the combined populations of the US and UK converging on an area the size of Manhattan. Joining them for this special documentary is journalist and presenter Amol Rajan, and he's visiting for personal reasons – to help him come to terms with the death of his father three years ago, and to reconnect with the land of his birth. The Kumbh festival happens only every dozen years, and this year's festival coincides with a rare alignment of the planets, making it extra special for pilgrims. Amol meets many of these pilgrims, all here to purify themselves in the polluted waters of the Ganges, but he also comes close to tragedy as a huge crowd surge results in the deaths of 30 people. Murder on the Doorstep: The Killer Clown Wednesday, Sky Crime & Now, 9pm Dan Reimer, who features in Murder On The Doorstep: The Killer Clown In the 1990s, a young woman, Marlene Warren, was shot dead on the doorstep of her own house in Florida by a mystery assailant. The killer had dressed as a clown to disguise their identity, but police immediately suspected Marlene's husband, Michael Warren, of his wife's murder. Their marriage was in trouble, and there were rumours of extramarital affairs, but Michael had a rock-solid alibi and the police had no proof, so he was eliminated as a suspect. Nearly 30 years later, though, police make an apparent breakthrough, charging Michael's alleged mistress Sheila Keen with Marlene's murder. But is there more to this murder than meets the eye? This three-part docuseries looks back at the investigation, interviewing investigators, witnesses, friends and family members in an attempt to unravel a very tangled web of lies and betrayal. Glastonbury 2025 Live Thursday, BBC One, 10pm The BBC's live coverage of this year's Glasto in Pilton, Sussex, kicks off on Thursday, but all this week the Beeb will be airing programmes in anticipation of the big weekend, beginning with three half-hour specials featuring Glastonbury legends from the 1970s (Monday, BBC Two, 10pm), 1980s (Tuesday, BBC Two, 10pm) and 1990s (Wednesday, BBC Two, 10pm). Clara Amfo and Lauren Laverne will be on hand at Worthy Farm to look forward to the fun in store for the weekend, which will see headline performances on the Pyramid stage by The 1975, Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts and Olivia Rodrigo. If you haven't got tickets for the festival, the BBC's coverage of the onstage action will be almost as good as the real thing – and a lot less mucky. Streaming Countdown From Wednesday, June 25th, Prime Video Countdown: Amber Oliveras and Mark Meachum A dead Homeland Security agent, a secret taskforce and a terror plot that could end in millions of deaths: maybe I won't have another consonant after all, Rachel, thank you very much. Jensen Ackles from The Boys heads the cast of this action-thriller series created by Derek Haas, the mind behind the FBI series and all its variants. Ackles is the LAPD cop Mark Meachum, who is recruited into the taskforce after the Homeland Security guy is murdered in broad daylight. The murder is just the tip of the iceberg, and soon Ackles and the team are racing to stop the bad guys from turning the citizens of LA into DOA. The Bear From Thursday, June 26th, Disney+ The Bear Chef-patron Carmy Berzatto is back in kitchen hell in the fourth series of the foodie dramedy, and he's still in pursuit of excellence in the former sandwich shop in Chicago that he inherited after the suicide of his brother, Michael. Carmy, a Michelin-star chef, has turned the dive into a fine-dining restaurant, but success is far from a done deal. Money is running out, and the kitchen is still in chaos and turmoil. Can Carmy create a calmer atmosphere in this culinary crucible? Jeremy Allen White stars as Carmy, with Ayo Edebiri, Oliver Platt and Jamie Lee Curtis among the cast. Squid Game From Friday, June 27th, Netflix How much of a gaming junkie do you have to be to go back into a game that could end in your death? In series two of the hit Korean series – Netflix's most successful non-English-language series – Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) went back into the game with a clear mission to take down the faceless organisation behind this murderous, macabre theme park, but in this third and final series he finds himself back in the Squid Game dorm after the failure of his attempted rebellion – and this time the games have been taken to even deadlier levels. Gi-hun must survive this last round and also outwit his treacherous adversary the Frontman as the tournament reaches its bloody, adrenaline-pumping climax. Smoke From Friday, June 27th, Apple TV+ The Rocket Man star Taron Egerton heads a strong cast in this new crime series about an arson investigator in pursuit of two serial pyromaniacs. Joining Egerton in the series – based on a true story – are Rafe Spall, Jurnee Smollett, Anna Chlumsky, Greg Kinnear and John Leguizamo. Egerton plays the investigator, with Smollett as the detective who becomes his reluctant partner; they'll have to find common ground if they are going to stop the firestarting spree before it gets completely out of control.
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
Does Ireland's hospitality sector really need a VAT cut?
Tánaiste Simon Harris may yet come to regret the elevation of a manifesto commitment to cut the rate of VAT charged on hospitality to the level of 'solemn promise' as he did this week at the National Economic Dialogue. Manifesto commitments can be discarded quite easily, especially when part of a coalition. Solemn promises not so much. The already tenuous argument for promoting the needs of the hospitality sector over all the other Budget Day supplicants can only get weaker as the summer unfolds and the twin threats to the global economy of Donald Trump's tariffs and the conflict between Israel and Iran unfold. The idea is strenuously opposed by the Department of Finance which came out against it in the run-up to last year's budget. Officials noted that it represented an 'enormous fiscal transfer of taxpayers' money to the sector which the evidence available at present does not support'. READ MORE Their opposition is unlikely to waver this time around. The central plank of their argument – that employment and prices in the sector are growing strongly despite a number of high-profile restaurant closures – remains robust. The Labour Force Survey for the first quarter of the year was published last month. It showed that the numbers working in accommodation and food services activity – which is seen as the relevant category for hospitality – reached 186,000, up almost 7 per cent on the first quarter of 2024. The most recent inflation figures – for last May – show that restaurant and hotel prices are rising faster than prices in the economy as a whole. They rose by 2.8 per cent over the past 12 months compared with 1.7 per cent for the consumer price index overall. The department will no doubt point to the continuation of the trend of rising employment levels and falling prices in the sector despite the levying of the standard VAT rate when the issue comes up for discussion over the summer But the indications are that their entreaties will fall on deaf ears and the Government will be swayed by industry lobbying rather than hard facts at a cost of €790 million to taxpayers.
