State’s bill for asylum accommodation jumps 19% to €1.2bn despite drop in new applications

Gordon Deegan

The spend by the State in accommodating asylum seekers last year increased by 19 per cent to €1.2 billion despite the number of new asylum applications reducing by 29 per cent in 2025.

New figures provided by the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, Jim O’Callaghan show that the spend increased by €195 million to €1.2 billion in 2025 on the outlay of €1.005 billion in 2024.

The €1.2 billion spend for the 12 months of 2025 equates to an average daily spend of €3.287 million.

The 2025 spend of €1.2 billion is almost double the 2023 outlay of €651.7 million.

In a series of written Dáil replies to Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn, O’Callaghan has stated that the costs outlined relate to accommodation for international protection applicants, including transport, facilities management, utilities and other related costs.

O’Callaghan told the Cork North Central TD that the State is currently accommodating over 33,000 people seeking international protection in over 312 International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) centres around the country.

O’Callaghan said that of the 33,000, over 9,700 of these residents are children.

He said: “Providing reception conditions to people who are applying for international protection is part of EU and Irish law.”

O’Callaghan revealed that at the end of 2025, there were 33,241, which is a decline of 533 on the 33,774 in IPAS centres at the end of 2024.

In a separate written Dáil reply to Fianna Fáil TD John Connolly, O’Callaghan revealed that the number of new applications last year totalled 13,160 which compares to 18,500 for 2024 - a drop of 29 per cent.

In 2025, IP applicants from Somalia were ranked 1st with 2,021 followed by Nigeria - 1940, Pakistan - 1,680 and Afghanistan - 1,290.

O’Callaghan stated that in 2025, the International Protection Office (IPO) delivered over 20,200 first decisions and the refusal rate was 81.39 per cent.

O’Callaghan told O’Flynn that the average length of stay in IPAS Accommodation across all 312 centres and all residents is currently 24.8 months.

He said: “Extensive challenges were posed to the State in sourcing international protection accommodation during an unprecedented surge in applications from 2022 to 2024. Many of the impacts of this surge period remain in place at this time, though significant change is underway.

“During this period, over 45,000 additional international protection applicants arrived in Ireland. Prior to this, a typical 3-year period would have seen close to 8,000 or 9,000 arrivals. This increase in applications placed intense pressure on accommodation supply, and also on application processing and the timelines associated.

“As such, efforts to reduce the length of stay in IPAS are focused on reducing processing times for international protection applications," he said.

O’Callaghan said that the number of new applications last year reduced by approximately one third on the year before.

O’Callaghan said that as a result of accommodation shortages and the need to prioritise accommodation for people who are most vulnerable, IPAS cannot make offers of accommodation to all single male applicants on arrival.

“The number of people awaiting an offer of accommodation from IPAS is currently 453, reduced from a high of 3,500 in March of 2025," he said.

On costs of IPAS accommodation, O’Callaghan said that “as well as reducing processing times, there is an ongoing move toward providing more State-owned accommodation, which represents better value for money than commercial provision”.

He said that the State purchase of Citywest in 2025 “was an important milestone in this regard”. He said that this has increased the overall State-owned bed numbers from 900 spaces in 2024 to over 4,000 today.

He said that while commercial provision will be needed to meet demand in the medium term, the Department “is reviewing and renegotiating all contracts as they expire, applying a new rate card pricing model that has already delivered approximately €77 million in savings since May 2025”.

He said that “along with other measures to increase inspections and compliance, and ending non-performing contracts, greater control and value for money is being exerted over the IPAS system”.

He told O'Flynn “While commissioning emergency commercial accommodation will continue to be necessary in the short to medium term, it is being contracted on a short-term basis, which will enable the State to decommission this capacity with agility as contracts expire or demand fluctuates.”

He said that “an overall reform of the international protection system is underway that is already working to speed up the processing of applications and should reduce the need for constant growth in the accommodation system, such as was experienced in recent years."

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