Since 2000 the State has used private sector companies to provide residential accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees in centres throughout Ireland. They have been placed in hostels, hotels and convents, and housed in bed and breakfast accommodation and mobile homes. Today some 4,000-asylum seekers live in 34 accommodation centres, and await the outcome of their application for asylum in this country.
The system of direct provision for the needs of asylum seekers – who receive full board accommodation, with State payment of their food and utility bills, and a weekly payment to each adult of €19.10 – has been criticised, and is being challenged in the courts. The criticism is that the application process takes far too long. Residents at some centres have protested publicly both about the legal delays, and their living conditions.
An Irish Times investigation into the State funding of the private firms that operate the direct provision system for asylum seekers reveals some further causes for public concern. Direct provision, it seems, may be more rewarding for the private companies as suppliers than for the asylum applicants – the intended beneficiaries. Seventeen private companies receive some €50 million a year to operate the service. However, the average daily rate per person (€29.49) paid to private contractors, which covers all costs, was twice that in the State-owned centres, which excludes energy, maintenance, transport and other such costs.
Nevertheless, the substantial accumulated profits recorded by those companies that publish accounts indicate just how lucrative direct provision has been. The Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) which agrees contracts with private companies, insists that value for money is achieved by ensuring contractors fully meet their obligations. That may not be sufficient to reassure the public, nor indeed can asylum seekers have much confidence in a complaints process that is handled by the RIA – the State agency responsible for providing accommodation – rather than by an independent body.