International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25
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Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan

I move amendment No. 16:
In page 26, after line 30, to insert the following:
“Transparency of accommodation contracts
14. (1) The Minister shall publish all contracts, subcontracts, financial schedules, performance reports, and compliance assessments relating to accommodation or services provided to international protection applicants.
(2) Publication shall occur no later than 30 days after the signing of the relevant document.
(3) Information may be withheld only where strictly necessary to protect commercially sensitive material, as defined by regulation, and such withholding must be justified in writing.
(4) All documents published under this section shall be made available on a publicly accessible website maintained by the Minister.”.
This amendment is an attempt to finally bring some level of transparency to IPAS contracts. It is fairly simple and states that the Minister shall publish all contracts, subcontracts, financial schedules, performance reports and compliance assessments relating to accommodation or services provided to international protection applicants. It also states that publication should take place no later than 30 days after the signing of any relevant document and that information may be withheld only where strictly necessary to protect commercially sensitive material as defined by regulation and that such withholding must be justified in writing.
The Minister may not like this, but any discussion of Ireland's international protection system is pointless unless we have a conversation about the massive profiteering that has evolved from the provision of IPAS accommodation. I do not know why or how any such statement should or could be controversial. The Minister has essentially told the House that the owners of properties essentially held all the cards in terms of the contract negotiations that took place. When discussing the previous amendment, we talked about a lot of the concerns, frustration and anger within many communities. Nothing has intensified that anger more than the reality that while communities have been completely cut out of the process with no engagement whatsoever - and the Minister's position on the previous amendment is that this will basically continue - the profits some companies have made have been obscene. What is worse is the fact that the conditions in which many international protection applicants have been living are unacceptable.
A small number of private operators have made millions off the back of the Government's dysfunctional approach. There has been no transparency regarding what qualifies certain individuals to get contracts like this. Across the country, we have seen people who are predominantly failed businessmen all of sudden become millionaires because they hit the jackpot and managed to get a couple of accommodation contracts. Every other business operation these people touched turned to dust, but we entrusted them with the care of human beings with no analysis of whether they were qualified or what made them qualified. We have seen countless examples where contracts have been entered into in respect of properties, people have been residing in those properties for years in some cases and then it turns out there is no fire certificate never mind any other building regulations being complied with. One scenario involved an IPAS centre that had been operating for a couple of years but that did not even have running water. It had to bring in water in tanks on a daily basis.
It is not just Sinn Féin that is saying this. In his annual report last year, the Comptroller and Auditor General was as scathing as I have ever seen him, and I am a former member of the Committee of Public Accounts. His report confirmed people's worst fears about the lack of due diligence and overcharging. The Comptroller and Auditor General has found an absolute disregard for the use of public money, and there is no sense that anybody is being held accountable for it. The Minister has repeated a couple of times during this debate that he has spoken to Deputies about IPAS contracts on a number of occasions. However, he has not answered any questions about any specific contracts because it is all being done behind a veil of secrecy.
One company that had been operating as a coffee shop made profits of €2,992 one year. That was the annual profit for the whole company. It segued into international protection accommodation and within a year its two directors were paying themselves €4.6 million in wages. Nobody seemed to be bothered about it.
One beneficiary of a lucrative IPAS contract was subsequently named in CAB documents as being involved in gangland crime. We found out that the quality of the accommodation being provided was wholly unsuitable. However, when we put questions about it to the Minister, he told us that it was all sorted and would not happen today, but we have no way of knowing any of that. That is what this amendment is about because ultimately this is public money. It is being spent on the mechanism that this Government has decided is going to be used to meet its obligations under international law to provide accommodation for people seeking international protection. Some €1.2 billion was spent last year - over €3.2 million every day - and there is no transparency whatsoever.
Sinn Féin is calling for every IPAS contract to be reviewed. I refer to the cases I mentioned that the C and AG highlighted. His office analysed just a small sample size of IPAS contracts and found huge issues in terms of due diligence and overcharging. The Government was overcharged by people who were in receipt of these contracts. It is bizarre that the C and AG found such blatant wastage of public money in a small sample, but nothing has been done. There has not been a comprehensive analysis of every contract, so we can only assume that if we extrapolate that across the sector, there is a whole range of other issues. The cases that I mentioned have caused uproar in terms of the expenditure of public money on contracts with people who were not suitable as they had no track record or had dubious backgrounds. We did not find any of this out because of the Minister's Department or because he divulged it. We found that out because of journalists doing their job and informing the public.
The lack of transparency has allowed what I have described again and again as massive profiteering. The Minister told this House that we were in a very difficult situation and if someone came forward with an offer of property, they held all the cards, but it is not too bad now because the numbers have reduced. He is essentially telling us is that if the numbers increase again substantially, we are going to be back to square one and we will see the exact same thing happen again.
I want to remind Members of some of the weaknesses the C and AG found. They included overpayments, incorrect VAT charges, poor invoice verification, inadequate due diligence on providers and weak monitoring of accommodation standards. That report concluded that financial controls were insufficient and the system allowed significant compliance failures and potential profiteering.
This amendment might not be able to address every inadequacy in every contract, but at least we will be able to say to the people that there will be a little bit of transparency and then they can adjudicate the success, or otherwise, of the Minister of the day. Again, I look forward to seeing how the Minister argues against supporting this amendment. There is nothing in the amendment that anybody should be afraid of. The notion of commercial sensitivity is a veil behind which the Government hides its huge level of squandering of public money. We see this across public services.
There is nobody seeking accommodation for international protection other than the Department of justice. It is not as if it is in competition with somebody else. The only reason the Minister is still hiding a lot of the detail is that there are some companies which are absolutely milking it in terms of the price they are getting paid per bed per day and the stipulations they have to adhere to regarding the quality of the accommodation or whether they are required to have the accommodation completely filled on an ongoing basis. I hope to have the support of the Minister and the House for the amendment.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-25