*The Hydro Hotel received €3,7m for accommodating Ukrainians in 2022.
ACCOMMODATION providers in the county are being made millionaires by the State for housing asylum seekers and refugees that are no longer living there, a Clare TD has claimed.
Michael McNamara TD (IND) issued strong criticism of the Government for forking out money to accommodation providers and not carrying out regular inspection checks to ascertain the amount of people staying at each premises.
He said the State are not dealing with people who have been denied asylum. “People who claim asylum have a right to be provided with accommodation but only people who are applicants for international protection, a very large proportion of the people who are currently in Direct Provision in Ireland are not people who are entitled to accommodation under Ireland’s international obligations, they are people who have had their asylum claim determined unsuccessful and are still in accommodation and they have nowhere to go, the State isn’t moving them on even though they have a right to work and have the same social welfare benefits as everybody else, they are still in Direct Provision and haven’t been moved on”.
Speaking on Virgin Media Television’s The Tonight Show, Deputy McNamara stated, “There are more and more people coming to Ireland claiming asylum, there aren’t people coming out to the system, there are people coming in, there is a huge backlog, the Minister for Justice is responsible for a huge backlog in remaining to leave applications, the first stage is an application to the IPO, there is a right of appeal and a right to apply for humanitarian leave to remain, people are in accommodation throughout all of that, there are people waiting years for that decision. The Minister won’t give statistics, people are waiting for her to make a decision, there is ineptitude in the Department of Justice and there are more and more people coming so it becomes more and more urgent that decisions get made but they are not being made”.
Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee (FG) is “refusing” to provide statistics, the Scariff native claimed. “She is refusing to give them and says she doesn’t even have the statistics which I find incredible, all I can go on is what I’m hearing from the Four Courts from people who practise international law is that the delays are getting greater and greater. On the other hand, millionaires are being made of people across this State to provide accommodation to people seeking international protection.
“I am aware in my constituency and from having spoken to backbenchers in other parties that there are many Direct Provision centres where there are significantly, I’m not talking about a room with five beds and there’s a family of four so there’s one bed and nobody expects a stranger to be put into that bed where there is significantly less people than are being paid for by the State, there’s no controls by the State to check these Direct Provision centres until people started asking about this. Now there are some inspections, again very hard to get statistics but people are being paid to accommodate people who are brought to a Direct Provision centre and have long since left but they are still being paid a lot of money to accommodate them”.
Deputy McNamara added, “The State is paying money for rooms that are empty while people are being moved up to the side of a mountain and told camp wherever you want, it is an absolute disgrace”.
Figures released last year revealed that Clare hotel operators shared out €21.27m from accommodating Ukrainians.
Hotel operator, Camison Ltd last year received €3.85m for accommodating Ukrainians. The Auburn Lodge is owned and operated by members of the Lyne family.
Two Lisdoonvarna based hotels received in excess of a combined €6.49m in 2022, the King Thomond Hotel in Lisdoonvarna operated by James White & Co UC last year received €2.79m. The directors of the firm are listed as Megan White, David Giblin and Ann Barrett and the firm now has unlimited status where it is no longer required to file accounts to show the level of profits it makes. The Hydro Hotel Ltd also based in Lisdoonvarna received €3.7m for accommodating Ukrainians. Marcus White and Somjai Kaewmahawong are listed as directors.
Kilkee Townhouse Ltd, the operator of the Kilkee Bay Hotel and owned by Derek Logue in 2022 received payments of €3.24m for accommodating Ukrainians.
Treacy hotel group operate Treacy’s West County Hotel in Ennis received €1.07m in State payments for accommodating Ukrainians. A sister hotel to Treacy’s West County Hotel is Treacy’s Oakwood Hotel in Shannon and separate figures show that hotel operator, Shannon Estuary Hotel Ltd received €1.18m in payments for accommodating Ukrainians.
Figures also show that the operator of the Bunratty Castle hotel which is owned by the Meadows and Byrne Group received €719,200 for accommodating Ukrainians. The owner of the Rowan Tree Hostel in Ennis, the Galway based Dom St Properties Ltd received €1.89m in 2022.
The successful health recruitment firm co-owned and operated by Ennis man, Brian Crowley, TTM Healthcare Ltd received €2.84m for accommodating Ukrainians and related costs in 2022.
Figures for 2023 have not been released by the Department of Integration.
