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

That is what he said. Words to that effect. The Minister does not publish the beneficial owners of companies. He does not let us know whether there is a number of companies who are perhaps getting less than €20,000 per annum that could be owned by the same people.
Crucially, what the Minister does not divulge is that while he tells us how much the company is getting paid, he does not tell us what we are actually getting in return and how many people individual companies are providing accommodation for and where they are providing it. He does not tell us if complaints have been made against any accommodation by residents or anybody else. He gives us the macro figures but he does not actually give us the detail.
The Minister says it is because of his information that we have all the detail we have here. I am after saying that we got detail from the Comptroller and Auditor General and from journalists. None of the really obscene scandals we have seen in respect of IPAS accommodation contracts were actually divulged by the Minister's contract.
The Minister tells us that in the second half of this year alone, through negotiations, he saved €80 million, and he said that without blushing. He should be embarrassed for his predecessor or whoever negotiated the original contracts. What he is saying is that for those contracts alone, we overpaid the equivalent of €80 million for a six-month period. How long were those contracts in place? Did we actually overpay over the past three or four years for those contracts? Will the Minister divulge that? I think that is in the public interest. It is €1.2 billion spent last year and over €3.2 million every single day, predominantly on private contracts.
To answer Deputies Gannon and Kelly, I absolutely believe we should not only move towards State-provided accommodation but we should have been there a lot sooner than now.
None of that negates anything I said earlier about community engagement for those places, by the way. I am on the same page. However, even the Minister, in the most optimistic scenario, outlines the current proposal as a wish to get to 14,000 in State-provided accommodation. Even with those figures, there is a very high chance there will be some need for private contracts, given the current trajectory.
Let us not try to find excuses not to support what are very important and clearly set out amendments. The amendment proposes, for the first time, allowing the Irish people to know where their tax money is being spent, who is benefiting and what the State and international protection applicants are getting in return. The Minister just says he does not see the reason for it, but he has not actually given an argument against this amendment. Therefore, I hope that, even at this stage, there might be a change of heart to let people know that we are going to provide a bit of transparency in this regard. It is the very least that people should expect when we are spending so much money, and when the Minister is overseeing such a dysfunctional system. At the very minimum, if we are spending €1.2 billion, people should have a right to know exactly how that is being spent and who is benefiting.

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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