A Mayo View: No one should profit from the provision of asylum

by Dr. Richard Martin

The Irish people are being fooled up to their eyeballs.

In the early noughties it was the transference of debt from public to private hands.

This time it’s not debt, it’s wealth.

The State is handing over hundreds of millions yearly to private investors who own and run IPAS accommodation centres across this island. It’s immoral and wrong.

Roughly €2 billion a year in taxpayers money is being handed over to owners of these centres.

Over the Christmas, I met numerous people I hadn’t met in a while and the common theme across all the conversations was immigration.

There’s no point denying it. It’s a hot topic and an emotive issue. People are fed up.

It’s a major point of concern in opinion polls along with housing and cost of living.

One of the major issues I have in the debate is that the public anger is being focused at the blameless refugees who are fleeing terror, not their exploitative landlords.

They are here for a reason and they are not as Paul Lawless TD recently decried in a Facebook video ‘economic migrants’.

We are a small nation, finally emerging from the biggest banking crisis (per capita) in world history.

Since the IMF rolled into town we’ve also had to contend with Brexit and the Covid pandemic.

Our public services were at breaking point before the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

The housing and rental situation is an existential disaster for the State.

The broad consensus across government bodies is that we need to produce 50,000 houses a year to meet demand.

In 2024, some 30,330 new dwellings were completed. We are a long way off where we need to be to resolve the housing crisis.

Right now we can’t put a roof over our own heads, never mind people seeking refuge.

There is a capacity constraint on the amount of refugees from the Ukraine and elsewhere that we can take into our country.

That’s a practical statement based on statistical fact and basic common sense. And that applies to every single member state of the EU.

There are now between 80,000-85,000 Ukrainians living in our State.

That’s equivalent to the population of Galway city and they all have arrived following the Russian invasion in 2022.

A city the size of Galway was added to our State in the past four years. Also there are roughly 33,000 people currently living in IPAS centres across the republic.

In Galway city they have four hospitals. UCHG, Merlin Park, The Bons and The Galway Clinic. There are 25 primary schools, 12 secondary schools, roughly 10 GP practices and 19 dental surgeries.

Bringing people into a country isn’t just a case of putting them in some makeshift accommodation and forgetting about them.

They have to be integrated into our society and use public services like everyone else.

To cater for the huge volume of people entering the country we have to develop public services in tandem. It’s not possible to do that at the rate and volume with which people are entering our state.

Our immigration policy has not been sustainable in any shape or form.

Simple basic arithmetic would suggest that that amount of people suddenly arriving in a country with public services already under severe strain is only going to exacerbate the problem, and it has.

Demand for public services, rent and housing is completely overwhelming supply. Our country needs a total reset.

The Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, recently said that: “Our population last year increased by 1.6 per cent, seven times the EU average….It is positive that it’s increasing, but the rate is a worry.”

A total of 18,651 people sought asylum in Ireland in 2024. The highest on record – up from 13,276 the previous year.

The statistics are undeniable and we are faced with not just a truth but a damned truth.

Our country is being overwhelmed by the huge numbers of immigrants entering and we need to enact and enforce stringent legislation to bring it under control.

Fortunately, in Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan we have the politician who has the will and the ability to do that.

The measures which he has brought in are as follows.

1. Asylum seekers (who are employed) will now have to contribute financially to state accommodation costs – which is reasonable and fair. This will affect roughly 7,500 people.

2. Family reunification applicants who wish to bring relatives from outside the European Economic Area must demonstrate they earn at least the median national wage, currently more than €44,000, and have appropriate housing.

3. Citizenship rules for refugees will become more restrictive. The residency requirement will rise from three to five years, and long-term recipients of certain social welfare benefits will be ineligible.

4. The government will also have the power to revoke a person’s asylum status if they are found to be a ‘danger to the security of the state’ or convicted of a serious crime.

All of these measures are fair and necessary. We have to have a system in place which welcomes and respects all immigrants.

However, the main core issue which is enraging the electorate has not been addressed. The vast sums being handed over to private individuals running IPAS centres is immoral.

An example. The State bought the Citywest IPAS facility in August 2025 for €148.25 million from Tetrarch Capital. It was revealed after the purchase that Tetrarch Capital made €17.5 million operating profit in 2022.

That any capitalist can make that kind of fortune from people fleeing war, rape, murder and terror is wrong on so many levels, and the worst thing about it is that the anger of the Irish people is being misdirected at the poor vulnerable asylum seekers instead of the nameless faceless capitalists who are making bank and running off gleefully into the sunset.

No one should profit from the provision of asylum.