International Protection Bill 2026: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25
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Alan Kelly (LAB), Tipperary North

I have no issue with the amendment per se but, as Deputy Gannon said, I am concerned that we are going down the road of enshrining the use of private accommodation. We really need to get to a point where this is all publicly owned. We said this last week. All of the Opposition have argued that we should have the infrastructure for the provision of accommodation. If we go down the road of putting in amendments like this, it could be a get-out clause for the Government to not provide such infrastructure over a period of time. I know it is impossible to have it done to a certain point today, this week or this year because in the emergency scenario they had to go down certain roads.
I have serious concerns about how these contracts were given. I have serious concerns about how the Department handled this issue. I know there have been changes in the Department. This was with the Department of children and then it came across to the Department of justice but the same sections came with it when it came into justice. I see no consistency in relation to how contracts were awarded.
There were constant personnel changes in the Department. You could not talk to anybody. They never gave contact details on their emails and eventually they did not even give names as regards who you could deal with to find out what was going on. Some of the decision-making in relation to contracts was downright stupid. Giving a contract to the last hotel in Roscrea was absolutely stupid. Another €150,000 was then spent pretending that a second hotel that had been closed for a decade could be opened. This was a consequence of giving the contract to the owners of the Racket Hall Hotel in the first place. It was stupid. I am sorry. There are massive learnings in relation to this.
I am concerned about enshrining this amendment in legislation because we are going to be dealing with this issue on a huge scale for many, many years. We need to have the proper State infrastructure in place. That should be our priority and that is where we should be going in relation to the provision of accommodation for those seeking asylum.

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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