Number of homeless asylum seekers increases to 1,780, up 80 from last week*

The number of homeless asylum seekers in the State has increased to 1,780, an increase of 80 on last week.*

The number of male asylum seekers still awaiting an offer of accommodation has risen weekly for a number of weeks now, up to 1,780 this week from 1,700 last week. A number of the men are sleeping rough in tents on Mount Street in Dublin city.

“Despite intensive efforts to source emergency accommodation the department is currently not in a position to provide accommodation to all international protection applicants (IPAs) due to the severe shortage. A system of triage of adult males has been implemented to ensure that those who are most vulnerable are prioritised for the provision of accommodation,” the Department of Integration said in a statement.

Volunteers providing food, bedding and clothing to male asylum seekers staying in a makeshift camp outside Dublin’s International Protection Office (IPO) said last week that they had reached “breaking point”.

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Activists supporting the estimated 170 men camping out on Mount Street said resources were running out, and the measures being taken by Government to deal with this issue were “reactive, temporary and ad hoc”. The situation outside the IPO was “now completely unsustainable”, volunteers and activists said in a letter to Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman last Wednesday.

International protection applicants who are not provided with accommodation will receive a temporary increase of €75 to their daily expense allowance. This will increase the allowance from the current rate of €38.80 per week to €113.80 a week for all eligible applicants.

*This article was corrected at noon on Wednesday, April 17th, 2024. A previous version of the article incorrectly stated that the number of homeless asylum seekers had increased by more than 700 in a week to 2,454.

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