A NUMBER OF families in Borrisokane, Co Tipperary will be allowed to remain in international protection accommodation (IPA) until alternative homes in the local area can be found for them, Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman has confirmed.
The Green Party leader told The Journal that, rather than transfer three families to live in Co Offaly as planned, his officials will now work to source homes for them “within the community” of the north Tipperary town.
Today’s confirmation came after locals marched through the town yesterday alongside the families seeking for them to be allowed to remain at the Riverside IPA centre rather than be moved to Birr in Co Offaly.
Families at the Riverside IPA Centre in Borrisokane had successfully applied for international protection status after first coming to the area five years ago. But they had continued living in the town’s IPA centre due to a lack of housing in the locality.
When people receive international protection status, they are then required to exit their accommodation – but pressures arising from the housing crisis has meant some have had nowhere to go if they want to remain in the communities in which they were accommodated.
The Department of Integration had cited the immense pressure the accommodation crisis has placed upon it as the reasoning behind its decision to free up space in the Borrisokane IPA centre.
Commenting on the dispute earlier this week, Tipperary Labour TD Alan Kelly criticised the department, saying that it would be a “scandal” if the families were “evicted” from the centre. He said they had “fully integrated into Borrisokane” and are happily settled in the community.
The department had previously said families would need to vacate the accommodation by today.
The department had offered the families to stay in an IPAS centre in Birr, some 20 kilometres away, if residents were unsuccessful in finding alternative accommodation.
It’s understood that some of the people using the centre do not have access to a car, a concern expressed by a local group seeking for the families to be allowed to remain in Borrisokane rather than transferred.
Speaking to reporters in Thomastown in Co Kilkenny today, O’Gorman said organisations such as Tipperary County Council and the Peter McVerry Trust are working with the families in the Riverside Centre to source new accommodation for them in the area.
“We have been very clear as a department that once people get international protection they need to move to mainstream accommodation,” O’Gorman said.
However, of the original 11 families staying in the Riverside Centre, O’Gorman said three families still have not found a place to live.
“So there’s a small number who don’t have offers [of accommodation] right now, our community integration officers who will continue to work with these families to source alternative accommodation and we’ll look to source that within the community,” the minister added.
He defended his department’s approach to the families in Borrisokane after it came in for criticism by locals.
Signs held at yesterday’s march carried messages including ‘Integration not Exclusion’, while school children carried signs saying ‘Don’t make my best friends leave’.
O’Gorman said that “all parts of the State” have a part to play in ensuring accommodation can be found for people who successfully apply for international protection.
He pointed to the Department of Housing and to local authorities as needing to ensure that accommodation is available for people, including through via council homes and housing assistance payments (HAP).
“My department’s responsibility is the accommodation of people in the international protection process while they’re waiting to get their decision on their status,” O’Gorman said.
“Once they have status they have the same rights in terms of social housing, in terms of HAP, and it’s up to the Department of Housing or local authorities to work with them to make sure that that housing can be achieved.”
The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth said it will be “working with the remaining families” and with local community groups and representatives, to “find suitable alternative accommodation for these families in the local area” rather that can carry out a transfer to Birr.
A department spokesperson also told The Journal: “When alternative accommodation is available for the remaining families, it is important that Riverside IPAS Centre continue to be used to provide much needed accommodation for people who are within the international protection application process.”
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