4500 Empty Asylum Seeker Beds Cannot be Offered to 500 Male Applicants Sleeping Rough - 20/02/2026

There are roughly 4,500 empty beds free for either Ukrainian nationals or asylum seekers at present, but they cannot be offered to more than 500 male applicants sleeping on the streets, an Oireachtas committee has heard.The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard that there are about 53,000 beds available in the system at the moment.Just under 36,000 are designated for international protection, with the remainder set aside for refugees from the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Of those, some 4,500 are vacant.However, many of them are unavailable for use — either due to the need for refurbishment or their placement as spare units within family complexes — officials from the Department of Justice told the PAC on Thursday.We were joined on The Agenda this morning by John Lannon, CEO of Doras, to get his thoughts on this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.