Westmeath has 10 IP centres housing 1,149 people
Westmeath has 10 International Protection (IP) accommodation centres housing 1,149 people, according to figures supplied by the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration.
The figures, which relate to October 11, were provided by Minister Jim O’Callaghan in response to a parliamentary question from Deputy Carol Nolan, who asked for details of the electoral divisions with the highest concentration of IP accommodation per capita.
The minister said the mepartment does not publish information on the locations, occupancy or capacity of accommodation centres at electoral division level.
Figures supplied by local authority area show that Westmeath had 10 centres accommodating 1,149 people, compared with eight centres and 534 residents in neighbouring Offaly and two centres housing 133 people in Longford.
Across the three counties, Westmeath accounted for 1,149 of the 1,816 people accommodated, or just over 63%.
The figures also show that Westmeath had more centres than Meath, which had nine centres housing 1,072 people, while Laois had four centres with 505 residents.
Nationally, there were 294 IP accommodation centres in operation, housing a total of 31,646 people.
Dublin had the highest number of centres, at 70, and the largest number of residents, at 10,175. Cork had 22 centres housing 2,150 people, while Donegal had 28 centres accommodating 2,046 residents.
The minister said more than 45,000 additional IP applicants arrived in Ireland between 2022 and 2024. During that period, the state had to source more than 26,000 additional beds for IP applicants, alongside accommodation for up to 60,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine.
He said centres had been opened across the country, often at short notice, to ensure people were provided with shelter in accordance with EU and Irish law.
Given the emergency, the state had not been in a position to implement policies on the dispersal or distribution of accommodation centres during that period, he said.
The minister added that the 294 centres currently in operation were distributed across every county in Ireland.
He said the department were taking action to improve value for money, strengthen governance and compliance, and renegotiate contracts with accommodation providers.
The measures formed part of wider reforms intended to speed up the processing of applications and move away from commercial provision towards state-owned accommodation.
The minister said faster processing under the Migration Pact would mean applicants spent less time in accommodation, reducing the cost of the system to the state. Faster decision-making would also allow successful applicants to receive protection sooner and people whose applications were refused to return to the appropriate country sooner.